Laura Mata García, Ph.D.’s Post

You just found out that 🇯🇵Japanese users are a lot less satisfied with your product than 🇮🇳 Indian users and you’re about to pivot the 2024 roadmap to revamping EVERYTHING in Japan. 🛑 Hold your business horses! It might be the Likert scale cultural differences talking. Let’s take a look. Studies going back over 40 years have demonstrated time after time that cultural differences affect how people respond to Likert scales for a wide range of question topics. The chart below, showing data I took from the Harzing, 2006 paper, demonstrates the stark differences in response styles. You can see that in Japan and China people tend to stick to the middle of the scale, while in India and Mexico people tend to skew positive in their responses and the US is somewhere in the middle of these extremes. So if you find satisfaction in Japan lower than in India, it is possibly not to be because the Japanese like your product less. ❓❓ Why does it happen? Research showed that cultural differences in collectivism / individualism, extraversion and power distance (view of superior/subordinate relationships) affect response style. Survey language also has an effect on response style with responses in English vs native language result is less extremes and more midpoint selection. ❓❓What can you do about this? Harzing offers multiple solutions: ✅ One widely used method is to standardize the results before comparing. There are multiple ways of doing it, e.g. subtract the mean over all variables from each variable within each country and then compare across countries. Here is a review paper summarizing these methods: https://lnkd.in/g4PCz_dF ✅ Using a mixture of positive and negative statements in your survey design might also help counteract the bias as these would average out the tendencies to select lower or higher extremes. ✅ Using scales with more items like a 10 item Likert scale would moderate extreme responses as it gives people an opportunity to give a more granular response. ✅ Asking respondents to rank statements instead of using Likert scales. ➡️ If you’d like to learn more, Harzing provides a great review of the literature and an in depth discussion: https://lnkd.in/g4jXTQP6 #data #datascience #survey #ux #uxresearch #userresearch #uxdesign #research

Hello, We're looking for a Spanish 🇪🇸 speaking UX researcher to join our small global team on a contract basis, for up to 6 months. 🕵♂️ 🕵♀️ Ideally, you'll be travel distance to our Barcelona office as we are Hybrid workers. Our team are spread out across Barce, London and Amsterdam so if you can travel to one and be a 'desk partner', you make one of our researchers very happy 🖥 😁 👌 Read more and apply below 😍 #spainjobs #uxresearcher #recruitment #storio #embracecuriosity #giveourbest #findthejoy #ownallwedo #actwithheart

A BETTER WORLD, ONE SERVICE AT A TIME: CHECKOUT FOR ELDERLY In a recent project from the #SERV312 Prototyping Experiences course, led by Professor Ricardo M., in SCAD, a group of innovative service design students showcased how thoughtful design can significantly enhance everyday experiences, particularly for the elderly. Gordon Beck, Abigail Dannheim , Emma LeCompte, Lucas Martinez, Lily Talah Moghanaki, Avi Patel, Eito Schwartz, Libby Statham, Claire Wescott, and Nicky Zuino collaborated to bring a compassionate vision to life: a grocery store checkout counter tailored to the needs of older adults. This low-fidelity prototype reimagines the checkout process as a relaxed, conversational space where elderly customers are not pressured to hurry through their payments. It features an effortlessly sliding basket mechanism, allowing shoppers to move their items to the counter without physical strain. This design not only facilitates a smoother transaction but also fosters meaningful interactions, making each visit a pleasant, social experience for individuals who may feel isolated. The project exemplifies how service design can profoundly impact lives by transforming mundane tasks into opportunities for connection and care. It serves as a reminder that with creativity and empathy, we can design services that not only meet functional needs but also enrich the human spirit. Savannah College of Art and Design SCAD

🔴URGENTE Están saqueando la Alhambra. Los cimientos, afectados.👇👇 (ver hasta el final)

¡Hola! Buscamos gente que trabaje en el sector tecnológico en España 🇪🇸(desarrolladores, diseñadores UX, UX researchers, analistas de datos) que quiera hablar con nosotros sobre su experiencia en la búsqueda de empleo. Por participar en el estudio se te obsequiará una tarjeta regalo de Amazon de 100€. Nuestra conversación duraría 60 minutos y se realizaría en inglés en una videollamada. No es necesaria ninguna preparación previa - sólo te haríamos algunas preguntas sobre tu experiencia en la búsqueda de empleo. Si estás interesado/a en participar, por favor rellena esta pequeña encuesta https://lnkd.in/dph58eg3 . Necesitamos esta información para asegurarnos que eres elegible para este estudio. No te llevará más de 3 minutos. Si quieres saber más, no dudes en ponerte en contacto conmigo 😊 Hi there! Are there any people working in technology in Spain 🇪🇸 (specifically developers, UX designers, UX researchers or data analysts) who would like to talk with us about your job search experiences and get a 100€ Amazon gift card as a reward? Our conversation would last 60 minutes and it would be performed on a video call in English. No preparation is required - we would just ask you some questions about your job search experience. If you’re interested, please fill out this survey https://lnkd.in/dph58eg3 We need this information to make sure you’re eligible for this study. It will take no more than 3 minutes. If you’d like to learn more, feel free to contact me. 😊 #ux #designers #data #technology #jobsearch

Struggling to get buy-in for #UserResearch? Think about how "organizational ignorance" motivates your stakeholders and team. A few years ago, I read a phenomenal article by sociologist Jennifer C. Mueller (link in the comments) about how ignorance *works.* Mueller observes that ignorance is not the absence of knowledge but instead its own form of "non-knowledge". This non-knowledge can be normalized, productive, and even advantageous for certain individuals. Now, Mueller focuses on racial ignorance and its relationship with racism but we can extrapolate her model to organizations and their appetite for research insights, particularly those advocating for more ethical and equitable design. For example, organizations can engage in: 1️⃣ Rational Ignorance: How the perceived costs of pursuing knowledge outweigh its perceived benefits. A classic example of this is when organizations deprioritize accessibility research because they don't see disabled users as a significant user base (benefit) nor do they accurately calculate the potential impact of lawsuits (costs). 2️⃣ Strategic Ignorance: How ignorance is strategically used to command resources, assert expertise, and deny liability. For example, one of the biggest barriers to setting up an equity-centered design process is integrating equity into stakeholder accountability metrics. If stakeholders don't measure the team's equity progress, they can't be penalized for not hitting benchmarks during performance reviews. 3️⃣ Negative Knowledge: How certain types of knowledge are labeled as useless, sensitive, or dangerous. One case of this is when frontline workers might hesitate to participate in service design research because the results of that project might implicate them in discriminatory or harmful behavior, and thus spark guilt, shame, and other uncomfortable emotions. 4️⃣ Pluralistic Ignorance: How inaccurate knowledge is reinforced by assuming it is widely believed by others. See the HiPPO Effect in meetings. 5️⃣ Structured Ignorance: How ignorance accumulates and becomes institutionalized over time. ResearchOps is critical to ethical design work because it enables researchers to surface timely insights to the people who need it and when they need it, which interrupts ignorance from accumulating. #PracticalEthics #organizationalbehavior #strategy #UXResearch #QualitativeResearch #ResearchOps #ServiceDesign #Design #UXDesign #UX  #UserExperience #DesignJustice #Ethics