Practitioners’ Views on Cultural Adaptation of Web-based Products

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2020Researchers have repeatedly found cross-cultural differences in how people behave, perceive, and interact with information. However, it is unclear how these findings translate into cultural adaptations in global products - the process of optimizing a technology’s user interface and interaction design to address cultural differences beyond a mere change in language and date/time formats. My dissertation research is the first to explore how the industry does cultural adaptation from a practitioners’ view. It examines whether, and how, engineering teams consider their customers’ cultural differences when working on mature, globally available, digital products. Using interviews, surveys, and two case studies, I investigated what type of cultural adaptations practitioners consider, the challenges they face, and analyzed their use of academic research to inform cultural adaptations through the human-computer interaction (HCI) Translational Science model. My intention is to show the point of view of the practitioners in my study and, through the case studies, to add an ethnographic perspective. By being embedded in product teams of two major technology companies, I was able to gain access often unavailable to other researchers. My findings contribute empirical understanding, an overview of what practitioners in my study currently do to culturally adapt their products and what is left unaddressed, and barriers to the information flow between practice and research previously unknown. I discuss the importance of culture in product development as a matter of social inclusion and why it is challenging to address. I offer next steps, including opportunities for researchers to address concrete challenges, focus areas for educators, and call out the responsibility for leadership teams to foster inclusive product development for users often located in more than 200 markets