INTERNATIONAL USER STUDIES AND PERSONAS

Agenda for this presentation

Introduction to the study

A proces perspective on international user studies:• Initial planning• International data collection• Perceptions of international users• International personas

Summary• Findings• Empirical maturity model

The study

• A study on how companies collect and present data about users on international markets

• 15 qualitative interviews in 11 different companies

• All interviews were held in Denmark- Large Danish companies with international users and

subdivisions- Danish subdivisions of large international companies

• Primarily companies that work with software development and digital solutions

INITIAL PLANNING

Deciding where to collect data: Strategic markets are prioritized

• A key decision is where, geographically, to collect data about the users

• In most cases the decision is made by management or the client

• The decision is typically based on what they consider to be the company’s most important, strategic markets

Where to collect data:Pragmatic issues sometimes overrule strategy

• Sometimes data is collected in other countries than originally decided

• And also in other countries/regions than what might yield optimal knowledge

• Economic and pragmatic considerations related to travelling, language, etc. overrule strategy• E.g.: it might be decided to do user interviews in

England instead of an Eastern European country, because it reduces the language barrier for all involved

Planning the study

User researchers apply two different strategies when they plan the study:

• A research design oriented strategy: Cover as many users and user groups in the chosen countries/regions as thoroughly as the budget allows

• A use oriented strategy: Provide the employees with insights about the important differences and similarities -

• Between countries/regions• Between the employees and the users• And between the many different types of users

INTERNATIONAL DATA COLLECTION

International data collection

Planning and logistics is often time consuming and complex, due to:• Field studies and travel planning

• One or more user researchers typically go to the field themselves

• Sometimes other employees accompany them • Involvement of external resources

• Recruiters, agencies, translators, resource persons etc. from the countries/regions where the study takes place

• Danes with a relevant ethnic or educational background

• Many users

The importance of going to the field

User researchers consider it very important to go to the field and participate in the data collection, for two reasons:

• To gain rich insights• Contextual knowledge, first-hand experience, direct

interaction with each of the users• Also important for other employees to go to the field

• To ensure the quality of the data • Consistent data collection across countries• Data collection is carried out in the way and with the

quality they want• Especially important if the data collection takes place

in “new” or less familiar countries

External resources: A matter of trust and controlChoosing external resources is a big decisionHave to be able trust that the external resources can perform and deliver the results of the study with the desired quality

This means that user researchers:• Prefer to use resources they have used before with good

results• And that they brief external resourcing very thoroughly:

• Detailed criteria for recruiting relevant users• An interview guide with detailed explanations of why

and how to ask each question• Detailed guidelines for how to transcribe the

interviews

Many users – recruitment is a big taskInternational user studies typically involve many users – and recruitment of users takes up much time in the initial phases

The prevailing approach:• The same number of users in each country/region that is

included in the study• Users should be recruited based on the same criteria (e.g.,

from a segmentation survey or existing personas)

“…of course, identical in the four countries” (Interviewee C)

Concerns about national culture create barriers for data collection

• Many concerns about:• Lack of education in culture• Insufficient understandings of particular countries

and national cultures• There seems to be much respect for national

differences• User studies are much less likely to be conducted

in countries/regions that are perceived as unfamiliar and culturally different

• Even when these countries/regions are or could be very relevant for business

PERCEPTIONS OF INTERNATIONAL USERS

Many similarities across nationalities – as well as important differences

• There are many similarities among end users, despite their different nationalities – as humans, consumers of particular products, parents, workers, etc.

• The important differences are typically due to market conditions rather than national culture:• The socio-economic situation, legislation,

education, societal structures, etc.

Perceived differences in national culture

However, perceived differences in national culture also play a role, and is used to:

Support behavior• An understanding of differences with regard to management

control and employee autonomy might be modeled directly into software that supports organizational workflow

Explain behavior• Challenges when communicating with people from other

countries (i.e. data collection) might be explained with different norms and expectations regarding efficiency and/or politeness

“Us” vs “them”

• Examples of descriptions of user groups: “the white middle class”, “the western world”, “engineering types”, “a blonde hairdresser”

• Linguistic images are very powerful in communicating a point, because positive and negative stereotypes are used to create a vivid image

• However, the use of general, value-laden categories gloss over complex understandings and create distance rather than empathy and identification

INTERNATIONAL PERSONAS

Two main strategies for creating international personas

There are two main strategies for presenting insights about international user as a set of personas:

(1) Creating personas according to nationality• When this strategy is used there is typically one

persona per country/region included in the study

(2) Creating personas according to other criteria • Such as differences in user preferences,

profession, education, IT competences, autonomy at the workplace, etc.

The choice of main strategy not only based on data

The choice of main strategy for creating international personas is not only based on data, but also on: • Preferences/opinions, e.g. what works best and

what it takes for employees around the world to relate to the personas

• Political considerations• “Market thinking”, e.g, “We want to develop the

Swedish and the Norwegian markets”

Compensating for the choice of strategy

Some compensate for what the main strategy leaves out by adding text fields that delineate:

(1) What would be different about the persona compared to the country specific description if s/he was living in different countries/regions

(2) What would be unique to the persona compared to the general persona description if s/he was living in a particular country/region

Two strategies for creating the content of the persona descriptions

Strategy 1: To tone down cultural differences and geographic references

• Focus: The persona as a person rather than a person in a specific place

• Argument: Employees around the world should be able to recognize and use the personas

• Content elements: pictures and drawings with little/no background, place names are avoided, general names are used

Strategy 2: To show diversity and challenge stereotypes

• Focus: the persona as a person who has both expected and unexpected features

• Argument: To communicate the diversity of the users to the employees

• Content elements: Somewhat unexpected pictures that show the personas in context, locations and names from around the world, etc

SUMMARY

Summary of the empirical findings

• International user studies tend to be large-scale studies that involve many users in a few strategic markets

• The preferred data collection method is field studies• The user studies show that:

• There are many similarities among users across nationalities

• It often is more important to take differences in market conditions into account than national culture per se

• So far, no best practice for incorporating both national cultural differences and cross-cultural similarities into persona descriptions, segmentations, etc. has been found

Findings: Dilemmas and discourses

Strategic, economic and pragmatic considerations

Countries, culture and validity considerations

Knowledge about strategic markets

The important differences and similarities

Business logic Research logic

Why an empirical maturity model?

Why did we decide to make a maturity model - and not some other type of tool?• To facilitate reflection and discussion of practice• To ”capture” the empirical findings and the two

types of logic

Why do we call it an empirical maturity model?• Primarily based on the empirical findings• Inspired by literature about culture, intercultural

competence, UX maturity – and how maturity models are generally outlined

Empirical maturity model – outline and content The model summarizes the empirical findings in two dimensions and at different levels of maturity

The two dimensions -The organization’s general attitude and approach to:• International markets: Which markets the organization enters, how

other countries/cultures are perceived, and where data is collected• User studies: The status (not, conducted, incorporated), funding,

and method

Each dimension is considered separately, according to five levels of maturity, going from 1 to 5

Empirical maturity model - use

The model can be used to reflect on and discuss:• At which level of maturity an organization can be

placed for each of the two dimensions• How the organization might become more mature

in its’ approach to international markets and user studies in the future