In my exploration of cultural adaptation through interfaces, I recently conducted a survey to gather information and details about people’s opinion on this topic. The survey, which was given to 6 people from different countries with different cultural backgrounds, consisted of questions about each person’s interaction experience.
Key findings:
- Language. Language is a critical factor because all respondents emphasized that having an English translation helps but there are also sometimes information, specifications, important notes on government or similar websites that are only available in German. Using a feature for changing languages to English or online translator doesn’t really work. This makes them more stressed.
- Document hand off. Multiple respondents said that they would like to be able to send documents online and come to the office after. This would take less time and pressure, especially when you still don’t know the city that well.
- Navigation problems. In order to find what you are looking for you have to go through hundreds of different pages and then you get lost in plenty of information and there is no clear navigation, which would tell you where you are, what you need to do and where you can find it. Some also said that government websites felt old-fashioned.
- Open information. Respondents said that they want to be able to find needed information online without having to talk to someone. One of them clearly stated – “I want all the info available online because I always avoid calling or writing an email”. Some of them said that a lot of the time they couldn’t even understand if they needed an appointment or not, or the information was incorrect or not updated.
- FAQ section. Something like the FAQ section is really important because then you can find your question there and answer for it right away.
Future directions:
The survey results have provided significant insights, which helped with the idea of what to do next. After my last Design & Research meeting, I decided to research and explore the creation of an open-source bot or chatbot.
