Emerging Markets and User Research - Apala Chavan

Innovative Solutions – What Designers Need to Know for Today’s
Emerging Markets

Human Factors International, Inc. User Experience for a Better World

Apala Lahiri Chavan
Chief Oracle and Innovator
Human Factors International
27th,August 2011
Bengaluru
© 2010 Human Factors International, Inc. All rights reserved.

Human Factors International

Pioneering User Experience strategy, research, and design since 1981
Largest User Experience company in the world
Local proximity, global reach…

© 2010 Human Factors International, Inc. All rights reserved. 2

Human Centered Design

Attention

§ Unconscious Learning

§ Motivation

§ Arousal
Decision
§ Emotion


The HFI Framework™ Version 6.0 Innovation and User-Experience Design


This is a journey
"through the
looking glass" of
different world
views, different
realities, and
different
conventions.


Another Culture But The Same Design?

We already know that the usual
ways of designing and
introducing a product or a service may not
work anymore in the newly opened markets. Not
only do the cultural differences play a major role in what, how, and
why customers behave the way they do, but the existing
technologies, distribution channels, people’s
wants and needs become new elements to consider.


The Three Myths About Emerging Markets!


Emerging markets are nations with social or business
activity in the process of rapid growth and
industrialisation.
- Wikipedia

Emphasizing the fluid nature of the category, political
scientist Ian Bremmer defines an emerging market as “a
country where politics matters at least as much as
economics to the markets.”

According to The Economist, many people find the term outdated,
but no new term has yet to gain much traction. Emerging market
hedge fund capital reached a record new level in the first quarter of
2011 of $121 billion.

"regions of the world that are experiencing rapid
informationalization under conditions of limited or partial
industrialization." - Emerging Market Report, 2008

It appears that emerging markets lie at the intersection
of non-traditional user behavior, the rise of new user
groups and community adoption of products and
services, and innovations in product technologies and
platforms.
-Emerging Market Report, 2008


The Themes

1. Culture
2. People
3. Technology
4. Transition


Culture


Who Exactly are the Emerging Markets?


Culturally Speaking…


The Story of a Pair of Non Identical Twins

The 3 charts below and on the next slide
present the position of each of the three
countries with respect to each cultural
dimension. This is based on our own research.
Interestingly, we found a lot of difference
between what we saw and what we had read
with respect to secondary research data
regarding these countries and there position
on these dimensions..

India -

China -

USA -


The Story of a Pair of Non Identical Twins

India -

China -

USA -


Genre of Methods


Culturally Speaking…


People


Demographically Speaking…


Older or Younger?


Viewing the Population - China


Viewing the Population - Brazil


Viewing the Population - India


Technology


Technologically Speaking…

Technology adoption and usage has sometimes been unexpectedly much ahead of
mature/developed markets. The ubiquitous rise and rise of the cell phone is a prime
example.

Technology has, like the cell phone, often become the great equalizer in these , often
unequal and hierarchical economies.

The population in these countries are eager to adopt and use technology in spite of some
obvious disadvantages like illiteracy and very low income levels.

What is happening in Asia is a "re-imaging" of the role of the mobile - Dr. Genevieve Bell.


Technologically Speaking…


Transition


A Common Thread

The profile of the typical global consumer
will be very different very soon!

Individually poor BUT collectively rich
VERSUS Individually rich AND collectively
rich.


Another Culture But The Same Design?
Designing for Emerging Markets


A Cautionary Tale!


DNA of ‘this as well as that’ 34

“Societies change around their DNA. And plurality or „this as well as that‟ is the DNA of indian society.

The concept of avatars creates many dramatically different manifestations of the same god.
The bloodthirsty kali, the patient wife parvati and the strong ten armed durga are all but different forms of
the same divine feminine power.” Bijapurkar


Role of User Research


In China


In Africa


In India


Environment


The Ecosystem View


The Ecosystem View

Maid

Grocery

Consumers

Kids activity

Personal friends

Shopping

Internet forums Work
Car Club

Relatives

Restaurants

Business
Pubs Parks
contact

Cafes


1. Discovering an Entire New Segment of Users
2. Advising against entering a new market
3. Advising relook at strategy for a specific
segment.


Research Methods


The Research Method Makes All the Difference


Vuja De and Culture Strain

Vuja de

Vuja de happens when you enter a situation you've been in a
thousand times before, but with the sense of being there for the
first time.

Cultural Ideal versus Cultural Practice
The places where the tensions are strongest between those two things are
the most interesting. They're also often places where technologies are very
successful.


Culture specific methods 57

 Bollywood Technique
 Jungian Archetype Probe
 Emotion Ticket
 Funky Facilitator
 Bizarre Bazaar
 The Genie Box
 The Semantic Dial


Delving into ‘Rasa’s [Emotion]:
Inspiration from the Structure of
Indian Esthetics, Art Forms & Poetics

Rasas are the essence of our emotions
that exist both in the body and the mind.

The central objective of classical Indian
art and drama is to create rasa in the
spectators, in order to communicate or
suggest a kind of knowledge that cannot
be clearly expressed in words.

Classical Indian art will try to cover all
rasas found in life, but will focus on the
most desirable rasas.

Less agreeable rasas may also enter
Indian art, but mostly to create the
contrast that makes the agreeable rasas
even more powerful.


Delving into ‘Rasa’s [Emotion]:
Inspiration from the Structure of
Indian Esthetics, Art Forms & Poetics

This culture probe was designed as a set of cinema ‘Emotion
tickets’, carrying the Bollywood theme forward.
•These tickets were categorized to express the nine ‘rasas’
or emotions used extensively in Indian performing arts.
•These ‘rasas’ were surprise,happiness, anger, loathing,
courage, desire,disgust/despair, mirth, pity
•Each ‘rasa’ was expressed through images and dialogues
from Bollywood films.
•Users were expected to articulate their feelings when
interacting/using any financial service and/or technology, by
recording it using the appropriate rasa.


Jungian Archetype Folk Probes

This method has been designed to make use of archetype folk characters
rooted in the Chinese culture and to have users transfer those archetypal
characteristics to other contexts.

The method entails using little pewter statues of characters from Chinese folk
tales. These characters are very well known amongst the Chinese
population.

Exploring archetypal associations in a „playful‟ and projective mode helps
elicit unfiltered and deep responses from normally „formal‟ and „not free with
strangers‟ Chinese users.


The Bollywood Method
 During the user testing the users were
subjected to dramatized scenarios rather
than a simple statement of the task.
 The idea was to help users get over the
problem of articulating what they are
thinking when doing the tasks.
 It is usually very difficult for Indian users
to „talk aloud‟ when doing a task during
usability testing. Immersing them via a
scenario seems to help take attention
away from the „seriousness‟ of the task.
 It was also noticed that using metaphors
from cricket (such as the analogy of the
very popular cricket commentators who
provide running commentary of the
game) and Indian commercial films
further helped the process of articulation


Thank You…
Thank You…

Human Factors International, Inc. User Experience for a Better World

hfi@humanfactors.com

Emerging Markets and User Research - Apala Chavan

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