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A top-notch UX strategy absolutely needs the backbone of solid UX research. This research is the secret sauce for cooking up the perfect business model, one that serves up value to both the customer and the business. I’ve noticed a key ingredient often gets left out of the UX strategies – cultural considerations. You might be scratching your head wondering, “Does adding culture into the mix really make a difference?” The answer is a “Yes!”
So, you might be curious, how exactly does culture stir into the UX strategy? Well, it could be the secret spice that helps us tell a compelling story behind the product, going beyond just personas and demographic/psychographic profiling. Grasping the cultural context in which a digital (or even physical) product will live can open up a whole new world of truly human insights.
Before I go deeper, let’s get our terms straight. What do we mean by “culture” in the context of a UX strategy? Well, anthropologists describe culture in its most basic sense as the knowledge we use to navigate our lives. This could be as specific as, say, a tribe or community in a small town, or as broad as a nation, company, or non-profit organisation.
When we conduct UX research, we usually zoom in on the user, or as I prefer to say, the human (as per human centered), in a singular sense. This makes total sense and is super important. Once we’ve built a user profile and perhaps done some product testing, we start considering demographics. But this can often boil down to a few data points (like personal income, city, state, average ages) with a sprinkle of psychology aspects such as values, desires, goals. This gives the context for the user profile.
But hey, what if we tossed cultural aspects into the research mix? We’d start to see a richer, deeper understanding of human behaviour. This kind of insight is more qualitative, but sometimes UX researchers can get a bit too hooked on quantitative data. By considering cultural elements in a UX strategy, we aim to understand the sociocultural system the user operates in, the models of kinship and reciprocity within the culture surrounding the user. This gives us a more complete picture.
For instance, if your product is tailored for enterprise applications, you’ll want to consider the typical cultural traits within enterprises. Each company has its own culture, but there are shared traits we can look at. Is the company hierarchical or relatively flat in structure? How does the organisation perceive the IT department; beloved, despised, neutral or a necessary evil? Is the organisation deeply siloed or highly collaborative? To explore corporate culture, we can use net-thnographic techniques. With this cultural context in our playbook, the product marketing team can build more effective creative and brand positioning.
For a consumer product, understanding the cultural context in which your product will exist can spark enhanced storytelling and provide insights for inbound marketing campaigns. You’d examine societal values and implicit rules and codes. An individual might love the product, but they might not spread the word if there are social taboos around what the product does. These could also limit usage and affect the time/place considerations. You can also understand product brand positioning and messaging that will resonate with different cultural groups, uncovering growth opportunities that may have otherwise gone unnoticed.
I’m still on the hunt for a UX research app that includes cultural elements. And weirdly, I’m yet to find a UX research app that applies much cultural anthropology. But don’t worry, you can easily add cultural elements if you’re using a template spreadsheet. I’ve been doing this for years, and it’s always an eye-opening conversation starter for product development teams.