[Sigia-l] International Interface Design?

[Fiorito, David]

Robert,

Not to be too picky but what you described - well informed local contacts
and cultural immersion _are_ ethnographic techniques.

Cheers,

Dave

-----Original Message-----
From: VanTol, Robert [mailto:Robert.VanTol at plc.cwplc.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 5:32 AM
To: SIGIA List
Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] International Interface Design?


Concrete help? Don't imagine you can unravel the intricacies of thousands of
years of civilisation with a few ethnographic techniques. You are not
Margaret Mead and you don't have a few years or even six months to go study
the alien cultures you want to include in your international site. You need
localised contacts who understand the localised markets you want to address.
And for good measure, you need to talk them in situ (go visit them), so that
you are saturated in their otherness. 

Having a sensitivity to the questions raised by ethnographic techniques
would be a good thing. They will give you some of the questions to ask, and
make you understand the magnitude of the gap between your world and the
other, even superficially similar, worlds. But don't try and do it yourself.
You'll be distracted and overwhelmed.

So talk to local market experts to get some insights, do your thing, and
then take it through in detail with them. You'll find it's the nuisances and
details in the style of writing, in the graphic imagery - especially of
people (extra especially women), and in the underlying motivations and
cultural aspirations, that change in unexpected ways. And then keep in
contact with your local experts. Otherwise you'll have no idea how to dress
your UK homepage when the Queen Mother dies (drape it in a black banner?
make a small announcement? do nothing? - you are not equipped to make that
call, and no ethnographic technique will help you either, unless you come to
England, buy a pretty little cottage in Yorkshire and go native - but that
seems a rather large life investment for one website :-).

Also compare and contrast localised international offering, such as Amazon's
(.com, .co.uk, fr, .de). 

Fundamentally you have to decide whether you are (a) an American site which
will be of interest to (and so is accommodating to) a world-wide audience;
or (b) a series of properly localised sites each offering a properly
localised service (eg, compliance to local customer laws, localised CRM
processes, localised advertising and marketing, localised products, the
different seasons (southern hemisphere), and respect for local
sensibilities). Neither is a trivial exercise, and involves the entire
business model of the site, not just your bit of it.

PS: It's a bugger. Good luck.

Robert van Tol : Information Architect : Global Intranet Team : C&W : 
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t: +44 (0)207 528 3505  
e: robert.vantol at cw.com 
Cable & Wireless - Delivering the Internet Promise
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