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An independent master's thesis on UX design aimed at fostering coherence and cohesion across different cultures.
Why?
FINDING SOLUTIONS FOR CULTURAL DIFFERENCES THROUGH DESIGN
The clash of cultural values is an ongoing challenge in our globalized society, one that must be resolved as humanity makes rapid strides into the age of globalisation. UX design is no exception to this phenomenon.
UX DESIGN IS ROOTED IN USER VALUES
UX design is all about user value. And these values differ fundamentally from culture to culture.
Human mental programming, mindsets, and core values are different across cultures. UX design is developed around the cornerstone of such psychological values of its target groups.
Hence, designers need to be conscious of such diverse cultural values when developing cross-cultural experiences so that they can achieve satisfactory usability.
What?
The design process for multiple cultural groups requires a comprehensive approach.
INTERACTIVE KIOSKS
Interactive kiosks such as ticket machines and ATMs are locally operated but have a high proportion of international users. Research through design with interactive kiosks shapes this thesis, and participants from two cultures, Germany and South Korea, engaged in the research.
CROSS-CULTURAL DIAMOND PROCESS
A new Double Diamond Process is presented. It also includes an empirical demonstration of how to bring intangible joy to both cultures through an in-depth understanding of subjective values.
As a result, this study presents a new direction on how to effectively yield positive outcomes from cross-cultural designs.
1. CULTURAL COMPROMISE IN
GLOBALISED DESIGN
GENERAL DESIGN
The general design is defined based on the mental models of users from both cultures, a compromise between their differing expectations, and international ISO standards. The core values of each cultural group were identified through in-depth user research.
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
Each unit is developed based on cognitive psychology principles—such as recall memory, the subconscious, short-term memory, and Gestalt theory—which apply to all humans regardless of culture.
2. CROSS-CULTURAL
PICTOGRAM SYSTEM
Pictograms create bridges of understanding. A major advantage is their ability to trigger mental models and subconscious knowledge.
ACTIVE USER PARTICIPATION
Participants from both cultural groups were given task sheets to interpret and draw their own pictograms for the terms used in train ticket machines.
The collected drawings were compared across the cultures, and the concepts with the highest cross-cultural similarities were selected and refined.
3. INTERACTIVE ELEMENTS
Interactive elements, such as visual hierarchy, consistency, affordance, and the magical number seven, are constructed based on cognitive psychology. These principles apply universally, regardless of culture.
Their size is no Their size is no smaller than 44x30 px, according to MIT Touch Lab research and Clark & Frost.
4. CROSS-SULTURAL
DIAMOND PROCESS
This thesis demonstrates the process of developing UX designs for two different cultural groups.
WHY NEW DIAMOND PROCESS?
The Double Diamond Process from Design Council is a pioneer of the traditional UX design process and has been playing an active part in various UX design projects across the world.
But the two cultural groups in the study were those without cultural connection to each other, so their issues differed fundamentally.
Therefore, a broader scale of penetrating user research and a comparison of the results were necessary.
So the idea of the existing Double Diamond process was adopted, and the Cross-cultural Diamond Process was developed, transforming it into a new approach.
DISCOVER
The purpose of this step is to diagnose each cultural group's own problems and gain general insights. User research is conducted.
↑ Usability Test
↑ Questionnaire German
↑ Questionnaire Korean
DEFINE
Designers define unique problems and backgrounds of each cultural group and pinpoints where the focus needs to be. It is a process of prioritisation in order to focus on higher value areas.
Simultaneously, a point of confluence or a junction is created between the two diamonds by comparing the two aspects. Minimising disagreements and seeking the most suitable compromise are key.
↑ Cross-cultural usability test
↑ Cross-cultural user journey maps
CONSOLIDATE
The purpose of this step is to deduce common needs, find compromises, systematically rank, and prioritise understanding. The key is to uncover commonalities between the two cultures that bring benefits to problem solving through visualised behavioural patterns.
↑ Behaviour Pattern Mapping
↑ Visualisation
DEVELOP
Ideas are generated to solve issues based on previous approaches.
After the issues that need to be fixed have been derived from the previous diamonds, the most effective design should be applied to solve these issues.
↑ Infomation Architecture
↑ Wireframe
↑ Prototype
DELIVER
Usability tests should be conducted iteratively with users from both cultural groups to evaluate the design and implement ability of services that have not yet been specified.
↑ Iterative usability test
↑ Iterative usability test analysis
5.
ATTRIBUTES AND ITS DEPTH OF UX DESIGN
FOR CROSS-CULTURAL GROUPS
To better understand the design process in designing cross-cultural experiences, it is necessary to take a closer look at the different impact depths of design.
FINDING UNIVERSAL SOLUTION
The strength of cross-cultural design lies in finding universal solution rather than in personalisation.
A perfect solution for one small target group can lead to negative consequences like confusion or offence to a broader target group.
Depth and precision can therefore be achieved only with a small target group that moves within a consistent range of values. For cross-cultural design, however, the more universal approach is the core process.
WHAT IS UNIVERSAL SOLUTION?
In order to understand the different levels of human imprinting that designers can access as a resource of inspiration and user understanding, these are divided into categories and represented graphically.
The search for a universal solution requires human nature and basic knowledge.
Human nature is the cognitive psychology that we all share, basic knowledge is the mental model that humanity has in the modernised world, such as technological knowledge.
Cultural values of a particular cultural target group are not applicable to cross-cultural design, nor can personal values.
The classification is essentially based on Geert Hofstede's descriptions.
61 - Mockup 1610.MP4Created at
im Bereich Interaction Design
Examiners:
Prof. Stefan Wölwer
Shaohua Pan
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