- About us
- Contact us: +1.641.472.4480, hfi@humanfactors.com
Cool stuff and UX resources
Secrets to Setting the Context for Usability
Introduction
Have you ever come into a room where an intense conversation commanded the air?
Imagine it ending with these phrases:
A.B.: "I'll never believe in that person again."
L.M.: "The facts are clear, it's all over. Nobody can deny it."
What just happened? Were you witness to the end / take-over / bankruptcy of your organization? The untimely demise of a project? YOUR project? (Of course, we always take the worst case, thinking it applies to us, right?)
But wait a minute. We're letting our imagination run wild with minimal data.
Keeping our cool, we ask Sushmita as she leaves, "What was that all about?"
"Oh, nothing," she says. "We were talking about the Super Bowl. Jason said the Steelers were going to win. He was so, so wrong, I'll never believe him again.
But now that it's all over, we know the Green Bay Packers are the better team. Nobody can deny it anymore."
Yes, context matters a lot
Notice how our first interpretation seemed ego-centric, concerned with our own pre-occupations. Does that sound familiar?
Our mind naturally applies whatever we see or hear to ourselves. When window shopping, what other pleasure do we get than imagining ourselves in those clothes, or camping with that equipment, or driving that car?
Luckily, we had a chance to ask Sushmita who was "on the inside of the story." She had the context.
Our usability work involves getting the context of how end-users see their work. So we interview them.
But what if they are from a different culture? What if your end-user has different sense of what "individualism" means when faced with a marketing proposition that "makes you stand out?"
What if your interview participant wants to agree with you on everything! Or, what if they're just not good at verbalizing?
In these cases we also need help setting the context for our interviews. We need to understand the context of even getting the context (!)
Let's check out the solutions to these problems in a 2011 book, Innovative Solutions: What Designers Need to Know for Today's Emerging Markets, the conclusion to our 2-part review.
Figure 1. BRIC Geert Hofstede Scores.
(Bar diagram from the University of Iowa Center for International Finance and Development.)
Who is that OTHER in the room?
The notion of "other" perspectives gets taught at an early age. We learn not to take other kids' toys and not to make fun of someone wearing glasses or who looks "different."
Accepting "others" becomes the foundation for civil discourse and just getting along.
But when trying to understand how others perceive, react, and conduct their lives we typically lack the wisdom that overcomes invisible walls of misunderstanding.
The two editors of Innovation Solutions, Apala Lahiri Chavan and Girish V. Prabhu, provide ample tools to help break down those invisible walls.
For instance, emerging markets include the BRIC quartet: Brazil, Russia, India, and China. We learn early about "Culture – Is It Predictably the Same?" The answer comes to us in clear usability-informing metrics devised by early cross-cultural researchers.
Power Distance – The United States scores lower than the BRIC countries in acceptance of an innate social hierarchy. We learn this influences how interview participants respond to usability researchers who they perceive as being "higher" in the social hierarchy.
Individualism – The US scores highest among the BRIC who are all more group-oriented or collective in their behaviors. Individualism makes you stand out. This can be good for U.S. advertising. Not so good for BRIC consumers.
Masculinity – On the whole, the entire world is more or less in the same range when it comes to being more masculine than feminine.
Uncertainty Avoidance – Brazil and Russia score high in this measure of risk aversion, above the U.S. India and China score somewhat lower than the US. This has implications for our understanding of how people accept new products in these countries.
Long-Term Orientation – The BRIC countries all scored higher than the U.S. where people seem to live for today. China and the U.S. appear on the opposite extreme ends of this dimension, thus offering a clear contrast in cultural difference.
These cultural dimensions provide the starting point for defining your user profiles and cultural personae. How would you plan your data gathering interviews or usability testing, knowing what you read (above) about the gulf in understanding between your own cultural expectations and the expectations of your participants?
Chapter Five, by Apala, shows us how to compensate with the following sample innovative solutions.
1. Interviewing amidst cultural differences
For example, cross-cultural researchers have long asked whether they should ask questions of their informant using the frame of reference (rules, vocabulary, logic, etc.) of the end-user, or instead, acknowledge their own outsider's perspective. Apala's experience suggests the latter. She calls it the Stranger in the Strange Land technique. She writes:
"The feeling that participants get of 'Oh, this chap is a foreigner and therefore it's ok that he is asking such strange/stupid questions' makes it much easier for us to ask questions that would normally be thought of as awkward or even a strict no-no, and equally easy for the participants to answer what would otherwise be considered embarrassing or very personal questions."
2. Getting honest assessment
When eliciting frank comments about a new financial Web site that was being introduced in China, users refused to say anything negative about the web site.
Her team purchased sets of little pewter statues of characters from Chinese folk tales that were very well known to all. She called this technique Jungian Archetype Folk Probes.
"What we did was to write down the names of the various Web site features we were evaluating on little cards. Next, we asked each participant to match each card with a pewter statue of their choice... In fact, the features that had proved frustrating for users were the first ones to be associated with the statues with negative attributes."
3. Testing for frank usability
Apala's team found that users would generally "take the middle ground", saying that every product was good. If there were any problems with the product, they would say it is the user's responsibility to solve the problem. She used the Bollywood Style to add flavor to the normal "think aloud" usability test method.
"When watching a Bollywood film, every member of the family (irrespective of hierarchy) suddenly feels free to voice their opinion about every aspect of the film... We created a dramatic (very Bollywoodish) story line and each task became a part of the plot. The idea was to 'immerse' the participant in a familiar 'story' (woven around the product to be tested) as if they were a character within the story and thereby make them 'forget' their normal hesitation to be critical."
4. Getting comments from the inscrutable
When comparing new product concepts in Asia, asking for people's feelings in a neutral environment gave little new information. Instead, Apala's team simulated the dynamics of a normal mercantile environment called The Bizarre-Bazaar Method.
"We provided a set of stalls with vendors (trained HFI facilitators) who were 'selling' mock-ups of selected concepts along with distracter items. The vendors described the concepts as if selling them to the participants and then gauged their reaction. In the fray of bargaining we gauged people's ability to grasp the concepts, appreciate the functions, and assign value to the designs."
Setting contexts for getting contexts
By now, you have the flavor of this new volume, just released in 2011. I tried to give a sense of what "Innovative" means in the context of finding cross-cultural design "Solutions". The book avoids the pedantic tone of academic writing. But it does not sacrifice factual data and research-oriented recommendations.
The wide range of contributors also leaves me with the sense that the book represents a healthy amalgam of design experiences. This contributes to feeling more confident that I'm not reading the lucky experiences of one or two people.
The range of contexts, experiences, data, and recommendations helps us generalize to our own design challenges. Based on the variety of situations, we gain confidence that when the time comes, we have background to start finding our own innovative solutions for investigating context.
While thinking how to make this review exciting (as well as informative!) I searched on Innovative Solutions in Google Books. What did I learn?
Well, I learned the book does a good job at representing current thinking. Also, you can sample pages by reading portions right in Google Books!
The phrase "innovative solutions" returned search solutions for graphic designers, software methods, and of immediate interest "BoP Markets". Note that BoP refers to "Bottom of the Pyramid" when referring to market categories.
If you are looking for a clear amalgam of these hot topics as they apply to your usability work, then read Apala's and Girish's book Innovative Solutions. As stated in Chapter One of their manual (I would call it).
"Today, the majority of designers do not personally come from the BOP and so lack the overlapping life experiences that can help them understand the context of BOP users. However, businesses are increasingly motivated to develop successful models for BOP and are engaging the design community on the BOP challenge." (p. 5)
Figure 2. Setting the context for Innovative Solutions in "usability" for emerging markets.
This figure shows that Google Books indeed provides an important context for appreciating our current review topic.
Figure 3. Getting context for evaluating books through Google Books preview service.
And you can sample the chapters!
Drilling down into Google Books brings you to the famous Google "preview" materials (see circled link). I found a satisfying sample not only of the Innovative Solutions book, but also other books with which I could do comparison shopping.
As a demonstration of the value of setting context for getting context, here we see how Google Books helps you to rapidly get context for deciding what to read about innovative design.
Check out Innovative Solutions: What Designers Need to Know for Today's Emerging Markets when you need a reality-tested context for your next challenge in defining and serving emerging end-users.
Namaste!
(Context matters.)
References
Charlton, S.G. (2009) Driving while conversing: Cell phones that distract and passengers who react. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 41(1), 160.
Drews, F.A., Pasupathi, M., & Strayer, D.L. (2008). Passenger and cell phone conversations in simulated driving. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 14(4), 392.
Eisert, J., Garcia, A., Payne, J., & Baldwin, C.L. (2013). Tactile Route Guidance Performance and Preference. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting 2013 57: 1504
Chavan, Apala Lahiri and Prabhu, Girish V. (2011). Innovative Solutions: What Designers Need to Know for Today's Emerging Markets. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, New York, London.
Message from the author, Apala Lahiri Chavan
In all these years of working on cross cultural projects, the one thing that has helped me the most is the "vuja dé" attitude! Yes, it's the opposite of déja vu and what that means is that I never assume that I know the deeper meaning behind a particular environmental attribute, artifact, or behavior that I observe during user research, no matter how familiar the attribute, artifact, or behavior seems to be!
It's certainly not easy to maintain the vuja dé attitude since cultures often have astonishingly similar manifestations of what turns out to be completely different underlying structures / norms / motivators. So don't get taken in by the deceptive similarity that will lull you into assuming that you know the context, and hence will not probe deeply enough. This can prove disastrous.
I hope you enjoy reading the book as much as Girish and I enjoyed putting it together!
Message from the CEO, Dr. Eric Schaffer — The Pragmatic Ergonomist
Today UX experts are frequently asked to design for different cultural contexts. This is driven by globalization and the emerging markets growth.
But it turns out that mastery of UX does not necessarily include mastery of cross cultural design. As such, practitioners in our field can fail because they do not understand this very specialized space.
In some cultures we find that time is not necessarily linear. We find that little may be black and white. And no, hiring someone who "grew up there" does not work. In fact local staff have trouble SEEING cultural differences, just as fish can't see water. They are too deeply immersed. They don't know where to look.
For those who are interested, I encourage this journey "through the looking glass" of different world views, different realities, and different conventions.
After growing up in New York, I've been spending most of my time in India. And it is amazing to see Apala sort through the differences and break through communication barriers to reach the core design insights.
Managing international data gathering and design is not for the faint of heart. We had one research team held up at gunpoint. And I can't count the number of fake participants uncovered in our process. But to be effective we need to go deep, because that is where the powerful design insights hide.
Leave a comment here
Reader comments
John Smelcer
Fairfield Professionals
Fascinating review to a topic of growing importance. It reminds me of a usability project I completed in Mexico for a large bank. As I arrived in Mexico City, I felt like a paranoid gringo, wary of everything new. And it was all new. But I assumed that the locals had no such wariness. Field research revealed otherwise, as Mexicans do not write checks. They are afraid of the postal service losing their letters and prefer to pay electronically. Ten years ago their cultural uniqueness had driven them to more rapidly adopt technology than the US. Emerging markets must be full of these issues.
Subscribe
Sign up to get our Newsletter delivered straight to your inbox
Privacy policy
Reviewed: 18 Mar 2014
This Privacy Policy governs the manner in which Human Factors International, Inc., an Iowa corporation (“HFI”) collects, uses, maintains and discloses information collected from users (each, a “User”) of its humanfactors.com website and any derivative or affiliated websites on which this Privacy Policy is posted (collectively, the “Website”). HFI reserves the right, at its discretion, to change, modify, add or remove portions of this Privacy Policy at any time by posting such changes to this page. You understand that you have the affirmative obligation to check this Privacy Policy periodically for changes, and you hereby agree to periodically review this Privacy Policy for such changes. The continued use of the Website following the posting of changes to this Privacy Policy constitutes an acceptance of those changes.
Cookies
HFI may use “cookies” or “web beacons” to track how Users use the Website. A cookie is a piece of software that a web server can store on Users’ PCs and use to identify Users should they visit the Website again. Users may adjust their web browser software if they do not wish to accept cookies. To withdraw your consent after accepting a cookie, delete the cookie from your computer.
Privacy
HFI believes that every User should know how it utilizes the information collected from Users. The Website is not directed at children under 13 years of age, and HFI does not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13 years of age online. Please note that the Website may contain links to other websites. These linked sites may not be operated or controlled by HFI. HFI is not responsible for the privacy practices of these or any other websites, and you access these websites entirely at your own risk. HFI recommends that you review the privacy practices of any other websites that you choose to visit.
HFI is based, and this website is hosted, in the United States of America. If User is from the European Union or other regions of the world with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from U.S. law and User is registering an account on the Website, visiting the Website, purchasing products or services from HFI or the Website, or otherwise using the Website, please note that any personally identifiable information that User provides to HFI will be transferred to the United States. Any such personally identifiable information provided will be processed and stored in the United States by HFI or a service provider acting on its behalf. By providing your personally identifiable information, User hereby specifically and expressly consents to such transfer and processing and the uses and disclosures set forth herein.
In the course of its business, HFI may perform expert reviews, usability testing, and other consulting work where personal privacy is a concern. HFI believes in the importance of protecting personal information, and may use measures to provide this protection, including, but not limited to, using consent forms for participants or “dummy” test data.
The Information HFI Collects
Users browsing the Website without registering an account or affirmatively providing personally identifiable information to HFI do so anonymously. Otherwise, HFI may collect personally identifiable information from Users in a variety of ways. Personally identifiable information may include, without limitation, (i)contact data (such as a User’s name, mailing and e-mail addresses, and phone number); (ii)demographic data (such as a User’s zip code, age and income); (iii) financial information collected to process purchases made from HFI via the Website or otherwise (such as credit card, debit card or other payment information); (iv) other information requested during the account registration process; and (v) other information requested by our service vendors in order to provide their services. If a User communicates with HFI by e-mail or otherwise, posts messages to any forums, completes online forms, surveys or entries or otherwise interacts with or uses the features on the Website, any information provided in such communications may be collected by HFI. HFI may also collect information about how Users use the Website, for example, by tracking the number of unique views received by the pages of the Website, or the domains and IP addresses from which Users originate. While not all of the information that HFI collects from Users is personally identifiable, it may be associated with personally identifiable information that Users provide HFI through the Website or otherwise. HFI may provide ways that the User can opt out of receiving certain information from HFI. If the User opts out of certain services, User information may still be collected for those services to which the User elects to subscribe. For those elected services, this Privacy Policy will apply.
How HFI Uses Information
HFI may use personally identifiable information collected through the Website for the specific purposes for which the information was collected, to process purchases and sales of products or services offered via the Website if any, to contact Users regarding products and services offered by HFI, its parent, subsidiary and other related companies in order to otherwise to enhance Users’ experience with HFI. HFI may also use information collected through the Website for research regarding the effectiveness of the Website and the business planning, marketing, advertising and sales efforts of HFI. HFI does not sell any User information under any circumstances.
Disclosure of Information
HFI may disclose personally identifiable information collected from Users to its parent, subsidiary and other related companies to use the information for the purposes outlined above, as necessary to provide the services offered by HFI and to provide the Website itself, and for the specific purposes for which the information was collected. HFI may disclose personally identifiable information at the request of law enforcement or governmental agencies or in response to subpoenas, court orders or other legal process, to establish, protect or exercise HFI’s legal or other rights or to defend against a legal claim or as otherwise required or allowed by law. HFI may disclose personally identifiable information in order to protect the rights, property or safety of a User or any other person. HFI may disclose personally identifiable information to investigate or prevent a violation by User of any contractual or other relationship with HFI or the perpetration of any illegal or harmful activity. HFI may also disclose aggregate, anonymous data based on information collected from Users to investors and potential partners. Finally, HFI may disclose or transfer personally identifiable information collected from Users in connection with or in contemplation of a sale of its assets or business or a merger, consolidation or other reorganization of its business.
Personal Information as Provided by User
If a User includes such User’s personally identifiable information as part of the User posting to the Website, such information may be made available to any parties using the Website. HFI does not edit or otherwise remove such information from User information before it is posted on the Website. If a User does not wish to have such User’s personally identifiable information made available in this manner, such User must remove any such information before posting. HFI is not liable for any damages caused or incurred due to personally identifiable information made available in the foregoing manners. For example, a User posts on an HFI-administered forum would be considered Personal Information as provided by User and subject to the terms of this section.
Security of Information
Information about Users that is maintained on HFI’s systems or those of its service providers is protected using industry standard security measures. However, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable, and HFI cannot guarantee that the information submitted to, maintained on or transmitted from its systems will be completely secure. HFI is not responsible for the circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures relating to the Website by any Users or third parties.
Correcting, Updating, Accessing or Removing Personal Information
If a User’s personally identifiable information changes, or if a User no longer desires to receive non-account specific information from HFI, HFI will endeavor to provide a way to correct, update and/or remove that User’s previously-provided personal data. This can be done by emailing a request to HFI at hfi@humanfactors.com. Additionally, you may request access to the personally identifiable information as collected by HFI by sending a request to HFI as set forth above. Please note that in certain circumstances, HFI may not be able to completely remove a User’s information from its systems. For example, HFI may retain a User’s personal information for legitimate business purposes, if it may be necessary to prevent fraud or future abuse, for account recovery purposes, if required by law or as retained in HFI’s data backup systems or cached or archived pages. All retained personally identifiable information will continue to be subject to the terms of the Privacy Policy to which the User has previously agreed.
Contacting HFI
If you have any questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, you may contact HFI via any of the following methods:
Human Factors International, Inc.
PO Box 2020
1680 highway 1, STE 3600
Fairfield IA 52556
hfi@humanfactors.com
(800) 242-4480
Terms and Conditions for Public Training Courses
Reviewed: 18 Mar 2014
Cancellation of Course by HFI
HFI reserves the right to cancel any course up to 14 (fourteen) days prior to the first day of the course. Registrants will be promptly notified and will receive a full refund or be transferred to the equivalent class of their choice within a 12-month period. HFI is not responsible for travel expenses or any costs that may be incurred as a result of cancellations.
Cancellation of Course by Participants (All regions except India)
$100 processing fee if cancelling within two weeks of course start date.
Cancellation / Transfer by Participants (India)
4 Pack + Exam registration: Rs. 10,000 per participant processing fee (to be paid by the participant) if cancelling or transferring the course (4 Pack-CUA/CXA) registration before three weeks from the course start date. No refund or carry forward of the course fees if cancelling or transferring the course registration within three weeks before the course start date.
Cancellation / Transfer by Participants (Online Courses)
$100 processing fee if cancelling within two weeks of course start date. No cancellations or refunds less than two weeks prior to the first course start date.
Individual Modules: Rs. 3,000 per participant ‘per module’ processing fee (to be paid by the participant) if cancelling or transferring the course (any Individual HFI course) registration before three weeks from the course start date. No refund or carry forward of the course fees if cancelling or transferring the course registration within three weeks before the course start date.
Exam: Rs. 3,000 per participant processing fee (to be paid by the participant) if cancelling or transferring the pre agreed CUA/CXA exam date before three weeks from the examination date. No refund or carry forward of the exam fees if requesting/cancelling or transferring the CUA/CXA exam within three weeks before the examination date.
No Recording Permitted
There will be no audio or video recording allowed in class. Students who have any disability that might affect their performance in this class are encouraged to speak with the instructor at the beginning of the class.
Course Materials Copyright
The course and training materials and all other handouts provided by HFI during the course are published, copyrighted works proprietary and owned exclusively by HFI. The course participant does not acquire title nor ownership rights in any of these materials. Further the course participant agrees not to reproduce, modify, and/or convert to electronic format (i.e., softcopy) any of the materials received from or provided by HFI. The materials provided in the class are for the sole use of the class participant. HFI does not provide the materials in electronic format to the participants in public or onsite courses.