Culture and Usability: Molich shows What Not to Do

At CHI 2003, one of the funniest moments was Rolf Molich's wry presentation about how not to study unfamiliar cultures. Called "The Devil's Advocate", it makes a great introduction to a week of stories about researching cultural issues and specificities.

Molich, of DialogDesign in Denmark, gave the presentation as part of a CHI panel on "Evaluating Globally: How to Conduct International or Intercultural Usability Research". He told the audience that the reason for his presentation was to help people learn from others' mistakes and 'spot snake oil vendors and vodoo priests'. But his advice was given with heavy irony, and none of it was to be taken literally.

His basic advice was 'don't waste time on international usability work; the rest of the world can live with it'.

'Go for quality - but don't define it. Remember: "If you don't care about quality, anything - including nothing - will do."', he said, quoting Gerald M Weinberg.

He went on: 'If you have local people in the foreign country, let them do the work for you. Sales people are usually best.'

And further advice included to 'test in English - everyone speaks a passable English. For example, US facilitators should always use English when testing in France'. Make sure your people don't know the local language, he told an increasingly intrigued audience. It is important that company people understand what's going on, but don't worry about the participants involved in the testing.

If, for some reason, you are forced into a collaboration with a local partner, you should base your selection on the graphics on their website, their price - the higher the better, and the photos of their lab, he said. He showed the image above to give an idea of how to recognise a suitable expert – by the term 'expert' after the company name. And he added the "guru-ness" of their founding principal and claims like "The Leader in User-Centered Design" followed by "We're looking for bright students to join our staff" were particularly useful guiding principles.

Lastly, moving on to what he called Advanced Testing, he said: 'Whenever possible, use unattended testing and call it remote usability testing. It sounds good and helps you save.'

It made an amusing introduction to the key issues in working with unfamiliar cultures – or indeed, ones believed to be familiar but perhaps aren't – and if Molich's inspiration was any of the bad practices he has seen in his experience of testing around the world, he wasn't saying.

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