Cross-Cultural Usability Studies

"We watched a company video at our last leadership retreat and it's the first time I've seen my Korean and Japanese colleagues speak in their own languages with English subtitles." My client was excited as she told me this. I knew exactly what was coming next... "It was like they were completely different people!!" Suddenly her shy colleagues, who typically don't contribute much in meetings, were confident, knowledgeable, powerful even! I often tell Danish friends that if they haven't met me in English, they don't really know me. When I speak Danish: ❌ I don't raise my hand so quickly to speak and hardly contribute ✅ In English, you're 𝗹𝘂𝗰𝗸𝘆 if I raise my hand before jumping in ❌ I never volunteer to present ✅ Ummm... yeah, that's my whole career in English ❌ I second-guess my word choices and pronunciation, never fully confident, even though I'm basically fluent. ✅ I speak with nuance and eloquence, knowing how to fully adjust my language to context and culture without a second thought. I'm treated very differently in Danish, due in part to how I look and sound when I communicate... but, also due to people 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱 the way I look and sound to hear 𝗺𝘆 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲. On the flip side, I'm often given 𝘂𝗻𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝘂𝘀 and 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗴𝗲 in English because I'm such an engaged and confident communicator. Linguistic inclusion goes beyond recognizing these biases. There are simple changes you can make within the organization (especially with the technology we have today) that can help you start meeting your colleagues in their own languages. Honoring your colleagues' identities by allowing them to speak their native languages in a company video (internal or external) is just a start. Does your company integrate translation/interpretation/captioning solutions (human or tech) to encourage freedom of linguistic expression? Is it time to consider doing so? #inclusion #linguistics #communication #unmuted

I keep saying the same pointless argument about language and Disability. I still see the same people telling others they are wrong for using language to self-identify. I still see people language-gating. Deciding that their preferred words are the only acceptable ones, and that anyone using different terms must be “educated” into compliance or publicly corrected, as though self-identifying is a test and this person has just failed. Self-identifying is exactly that, self. It’s not for you to correct, debate, or rewrite. If someone chooses “Disabled person” or “person with a Disability,” “autistic” or “person on the spectrum,” ��blind” or “person with sight loss”, that’s theirs. Not yours, but theirs. When you correct the language someone uses to self-identify, you’re not protecting language, you’re erasing their autonomy. When you gatekeep language, you’re not be respectful, you’re shutting people out of their own identities. We don’t need more debates about which words are “right.” We need more respect for each individual’s right to choose. Image Description: Image Description: A Disabled by Society graphic titled “12 things to remember about self-identifying” with colorful illustrations next to each point. The points are: It’s an individual’s choice – person in wheelchair waving. There is no wrong answer – a parent walking with their child who is wearing blade on their leg. And no right answer – a person of short statue playing basketball. Stop correcting people – woman in hijab standing confidently with a walking aid. Language varies across regions – person painting with no upper limbs, using their mouth to hold their paintbrush and paint. Social factors can influence – person with a prosthetic hand pouring a cuppa. Or personal feelings – two friends signing at a café. A person might change language – man watering plants whilst using his cane. And that’s perfectly fine – person walking a guide dog. It’s their lived experience – woman with a prosthetic arm walking confidently. Their right to self-identify – person at a laptop smiling with coffee. Let the individual choose – elderly person with a walker standing proudly. #TuesdayThoughts #DisabledBySociety #Langauge #DisabilityInclusion

If you open a Chinese app for the first time, you’ll probably think it’s badly designed. Too many icons and features. Everything crammed onto one screen. If you grew up on Western apps, your instinct is immediate: this is cluttered. But it works. In the U.S., we’ve been trained to associate good UX with minimalism. In China, density often signals value. Open WeChat or Alipay, and it feels overwhelming at first. Information-heavy, feature-packed. But to local users, that density means capability. It says: everything you might need is already here in front of you. If you enter a new market assuming your design taste equals good UX, you’ll misread the signal. Good design is contextual. *** If you found this useful, consider reposting ♻️ to your network. #design #startups

A woman presents to a room of senior executives. She’s attractive, sharp, and well-prepared. She uses “may” instead of “will.” She says “it could be the case that...” instead of “it’s clear that...” You conclude that she needs to be more assertive and decisive. But that conclusion assumes she’s acting from insecurity. And that assumption is a new layer of judgmental conditioning. The research: Early work by Robin Lakoff framed hedging as a marker of uncertainty in women’s speech. But subsequent research has complicated that view. Linguists like Janet Holmes show that hedging often functions as precision and social intelligence - aligning claims with actual certainty and managing interpersonal dynamics. Alongside this, work by Victoria L. Brescoll and Eric Luis Uhlmann demonstrates that identical assertive behaviour is judged more harshly in women than in men. The point? What is often dismissed as “softening” may be a calibrated response to both knowledge accuracy and asymmetric social risk.

“I talk and talk and talk to my team, and nothing” she said, as she explained her “English problem” to me. She thought she had an English problem. But after carefully listening to her lay it out, I had no choice but to respectfully disagree. What she and other professionals in her situation have is not an “English problem,” it's a pragmatic one: over-talking, over-explaining, over-justifying to “compensate“ for self-perceived language deficiencies. Many professionals navigating the workplace in English think: more words = more clarity or I need to learn “more English.“ They're wrong. The solution is not “more English,“ more words, more grammar or more fluency-misunderstood-as-verbosity, but rather intentionally orienting the listener for relevance. That's all. 🧠 In fact, research in pragmatics and psycholinguists shows that when listeners are overloaded, they stop processing content and start filtering for relevance, and that's exactly where you lose your audience. In other words, people do not reward the speaker who says the most, but the speaker who makes it easiest to infer why this message matters right now and what exactly they have to do with the information they are receiving. The listener is constantly asking three silent questions: 👉 What is this about? 👉 Why should I care? 👉 What am I supposed to do with it? If your language does not clearly orient them to those three things, they experience cognitive strain. Under strain, the brain defaults to polite disengagement, interruption, or decision-avoidance. That's why “more English“ doesn't help you prepare for these situations. Your English can be flawless, you can be perfectly grammatical and fluent, and still be pragmatically invisible, like the case we're discussing today. And pragmatic invisibility is a lot like being ignored — it's that “and nothing” at the end. So over the next few sessions, my client will be practicing a simple 3-step framework she can apply in those moments when she feels the urge to add words. The goal is to take her from her current communication pattern: ❌ explaining → qualifying → adding → softening → checking → continuing to this ✅ orientation → judgment → space To achieve that, I'll have her practice a simple recalibration structure. No textbooks. No grammar. No vocabulary lists to memorize. Just a simple framework to communicate effectively in English. 💬 Over to you: Where have you noticed yourself or others explaining more, when what was really missing was clearer orientation about what was needed? #PRAGMA #EnglishCommunication #ExecutiveCommunication

When I first learned about "hedging" in 2019, I immediately dove into learning all about gendered language - and fell down a research rabbit hole I never wanted to escape! So here's a little summary for you, in case you just want to look at the surface before diving in... In the 1970s, research on language and gender began with people like Robin Lakoff asking: "Do women and men talk differently?" This spawned decades of "difference" studies trying to catalog how women supposedly: ➡️ Use more hedges ("sort of," "kind of") ➡️ Ask more tag questions ("it's cold, isn't it?") ➡️ Speak more "politely" ➡️ Interrupt less than men But more recently, researchers like Elizabeth Stokoe started challenging this approach! Rather than treating gender as something people "have," they explored how gender is something people "do" through conversation. (Also known as gender as a performance - something my friend Annie and I have been discussing a lot lately...) This shift was revolutionary because: ➡️ It moved away from reinforcing gender stereotypes ➡️ It focused on how people actively construct gender identities in conversation ➡️ It examined when and how gender becomes relevant in interactions What I love about Stokoe's approach is she uses a methodology called "conversation analysis" to examine how people categorise themselves and others as gendered beings. Instead of assuming gender is always relevant, she looks at when speakers themselves make it relevant in their talk. For example, when someone says "I'm not like other girls" or repairs a description from "girl" to "woman," they're actively doing categorisation work that constructs gender boundaries... (And with my matcha lattes and Taylor Swift streaming, I'm exactly like other girls and proud of it.) My own journey with this research started during my PhD when I realised how many women were positioning themselves as "not good with language" in professional settings despite having excellent communication skills, wether intentionally or otherwise. This self-categorisation was doing important cultural work - reinforcing stereotypes while protecting them from criticism. Now I help women recognise how our language choices can either reinforce or challenge gender norms. Not because women need to "fix" their language, but because understanding these patterns gives us more choices about how we position ourselves and others. It's all about, my favourite word: INTENTION. So if you're interested in learning more about intentional language (and especially if you care about how this affects tech), drop me a message or a comment, and I'd love to chat! #GenderedLanguage #WomenInBusiness #WomenInTech

Indians are using ChatGPT differently than the rest of the world 🚀 Over the weekend, I asked all of you to share your last 5 ChatGPT prompts. Unsanitised. All raw. No cleanup. 122 real prompts from 26 Indian users so far, I'm seeing patterns that aren't documented anywhere in Western AI research studies. Here are my rough notes so far, I am still gathering prompts to develop my understanding further. 1. Hinglish AI: Indians talk to ChatGPT in "bilingual interaction mode" seamlessly blending Hindi and English in prompts. Sanskrit terms appeared too! 2. Trust-Based AI Relationships: Indians develop deeper personal relationships with AI than any documented global pattern. Seeking advice on health, family, intimate life decisions. So many of you asked ChatGPT about prolonged fever, heartbreak, family conflicts. 3. Multi-Domain Chat Jumping: Unique "topic-jumping" behaviour where users explore unrelated subjects in single sessions. Sensors → wine → house design → coding. All in one conversation. 4. Age No Bar: Counter to typical patterns, older Indians show the highest AI interaction sophistication. People aged 45-55 give incredibly detailed prompts about medical reports instead of using it like Google search. 5. Professional AI Integration: Everyone is using ChatGPT at work. Those without company access? They use ChatGPT from their phones for work tasks. This is work in progress research. I need more data to solidify these findings. Why this study matters: → So Indians can design better AI products for Indians → Product leaders, CEOs, and founders can leverage these insights for their own AI development and sales → We understand our unique interaction patterns instead of assuming global research applies to us I need 5 more minutes of your time. Share your last 5 ChatGPT prompts via the Google form in comments. No login needed. Complete privacy and safety guaranteed. All insights will be shared back with this community for everyone to learn and benefit. Help me document how India actually uses #AI 🙏

Leaders tell me all the time, “I thought I sounded open in that conversation.” Then we slow the moment down, look at the language they used, and realize the other person had no chance of feeling that openness. Presence lives in what people can actually observe. Not in your intention. Your internal experience does not automatically translate. You can want to understand someone’s perspective and still land as sharp or dismissive. That gap shows up in boardroom debates, project reviews, and, for many of us... holiday dinners. Tis the season! This new HBR article (linked in comments) by Julia Minson, Hanne Collins and @Michael Yeomans highlights great new research speaking directly to that point. They focused their research very specifically on language behaviors we can all use to better articulate curiosity in moments of conflict so that the other person feels seen, valued, and heard - key factors in trust-building for your team. A few language examples from the research stood out: >>> Many people think they sound curious when they say, “How can you believe that?” or “Why would you think that?” /// Most people actually FEEL curioisity when someone says, “I want to understand how you see this,” or “I’m interested in what shaped your view.” >>> People assume repeating their own point as a question shows openness. It doesn't. /// Others actually experience a feeling of 'openness" when you acknowledge what you heard before adding your view. Repeat what has been said back to demonstrate active listening BEFORE you jump in with your POV. Good reading for anyone moving through year-end conversations or holiday dynamics, or working with a team that navigates conflict frequently (aka, most of us who work in teams!). Small shifts in language CAN change how people experience you - this is the part of presence you can practice right now. Why not?

Your tech solutions might be universal, but business cultures rarely are. For founders expanding globally, understanding cultural nuances can make a world of difference. I've seen so many brilliant construction tech solutions face unexpected challenges internationally not because of product issues, but because of cultural cues that were hiding in plain sight. What works smoothly in your home market frequently encounters unexpected barriers abroad. In our latest Practical Nerds episode, Shubhankar and I explored three cultural patterns we've observed that often create unexpected challenges for founders expanding internationally: 1/ Trust deficit can kill deals in Asia before you realize what happened. Asian markets require relationships BEFORE transactions. That mid-deal silence? It's not disinterest—it's a fundamental lack of trust. When things stall, don't send another "just checking in" email. Request a direct call: "Hey, can we get on a call? I'd just like to hear from you." 2/ Europeans want facts, not hype. Your high-energy American pitch style? It can be "overcompensating" to Europeans. They're engineering-minded—lead with observations, not judgments. And remember: Europeans minimize downside before maximizing upside. Frame your solution as risk mitigation first, opportunity second. 3/ Middle East surprisingly loves American tech but demands in-person presence. Virtual meetings barely register as "meetings" at all. And forget the org chart—decisions flow through specific gatekeepers who might not even appear in formal hierarchies. What seems to work well for many companies in global expansion? Maintaining consistent products and channels while building localized teams who can navigate the nuances of each market's business culture. 👇 Dive deeper into our full analysis of global construction tech expansion below. #ConstructionTech #GlobalExpansion #BusinessCulture

Two employees ask AI for feedback. One employee speaks English. The other speaks Arabic. They get totally different answers. I came across a fascinating study on the Anthropic website last week speaking to my most frequently asked question these days: "How does culture impact AI?" The researchers found that Claude's responses vary depending on the language you're using. In English, for example, it tends to lean toward rigor, depth, and caution. In languages like Hindi and Arabic, it expresses more warmth. In Dutch, it leans more towards candor. In Indonesian, it becomes more execution-focused. This reiterates what we already know: language and culture are deeply intertwined. The words softness versus clarity of the words we choose, the level of emotional expressiveness we use while speaking about everyday things, even how we signal disagreement are all influenced by the cultural environments in which we learned them. As language carries culture, we now can see that AI may change course just because I ask the question in a different language. As AI becomes part of our daily work, this raises interesting questions like: What if I’m not from the culture of the language I speak (like my kids who speak English like Americans but are culturally French)? What if our work language is English, but we are operating in Indonesia, the Netherlands, and India? If we are multilingual, should we ask the same questions to AI in both languages in order to increase the chances of profiting from culturally diverse viewpoints? What have you noticed about how AI is navigating cultural and linguistic differences in our ever-more connected global world? You can read the article here: https://lnkd.in/eSh6bNsH