What Is Culture?

Culture as we understand it follows the concept of culture coined by Geertz (1973) as “webs of significance that man himself has spun”. The analysis of these webs is concerned with the ways people find meaning in the world.

Culture embraces:

• Meanings, behavior, and practices that people develop and share over time
• The set of roles and beliefs an individual holds in a larger group or context
• The constraints or influences that this group or context has on individuals’ actions

Aspects of local cultures include:

• Sociocultural aspects (such as age, gender, or organization)
• Individual factors (such as personal background, education, or interests)
• Different ways of living and acting

“The Germans”, “the Americans”, or “the Chinese” are not cultural groups, even though there are traits on a national level that can help us to gain an initial understanding of a specific group. These stem from stereotypes, generalizations, behaviors, or other basic categorizations. But using only these basic categories simply ignores cultural differences within nations, historical changes, and any specific context.

Culture is not a static concept; cultures evolve and change over time, and there is a constant influence on local cultures.

What Does Intercultural UX Mean?

Intercultural UX means designing for many different cultures, languages, and economic situations, while ensuring usability and a positive user experience across intercultural boundaries.

We should always bear in mind that technology is contextualized in a culture and that how people interpret products is determined by their cultural background. UX design must not only consider the characteristics of the people, but also the technical and business environment.

Design Mindset

Allowing for the intercultural dimension – the experiences shared by people of different cultures, and how they interact with each other – requires greater immersion and personal engagement during app design. It’s therefore vital to foster a lively exchange between teams from different countries and regions.

We need to learn how product experiences for the same product work around the world. This will allow us to:

• Define optimum criteria for globally-used software

• Minimize variations and build culturally-agnostic software whenever possible

• Recognize the constant global influence on local culture

• Choose the essential use cases for adaptation of standard applications for intercultural usage. This can be necessary if:

  • People can’t perform their tasks with standard software
  • Design elements might offend them
  • Components need to be added or modified to enhance the local user experience (such as patterns, objects, or workflows).

Design Checklist

Consider the cultural and intercultural context when designing business software, including:

• All factors that influence user actions and business processes, such as:

  • Socio-cultural and organizational hierarchies
  • Behaviors
  • Ways of acting
  • Working modes
  • Technologies
  • User demographics (for example, age or education)
  • Communication

• Environments (such as geography and infrastructure)

• Meanings of metaphors and symbols

• Influences on naming and terminology

• Ways of working with SAP (for example, design thinking and co-innovation projects, usability testing, user validation, and implementation projects)

Cultural and intercultural aspects can influence the following UX components:

• Metaphors (such as icons, images, words)
• Mental models (such as content, function, tool, media, role, goal, task)
• Navigation (movement through mental models; how users are directed through content and tools via windows, dialog boxes, control panels, menu trees, and hierarchies)
• Interaction (such as status displays, input/output techniques, visual feedback, speed, frequency)
• Appearance (such as colors, layouts, fonts)