kowski's diary

I have been thinking about the process of pursuing cross-cultural research. Often time, when there is a 'cross-cultural' research conducted in China, we saw 'findings' like Chinese like red, Chinese government are autocratic, Chinese are collectivists, Chinese are bonded by guan-xi, and so forth. However, these terms, rather than telling us anything, are merely a coat of paint we smeared on the same piece of paper to make it more colorful. Not knowing what drives guanxi or autocracy, we turn to the mysterious state and point figures to human rights and arcane policies.

Lately, I have been thinking of a problem. That many successful products have large user base. We had try to get designers to create great products. We said they made them beautiful, but not necessary usable. We got usability professionals to make them usable. We interview them once every few months to update usability guidelines. Lastly, we put users into the same room as we work. We work, they tell us how to do it. Now what?

It is indeed hard to comprehend impact of technologies on society. It is even harder to write about them. When we have an insight, even if we are certain about it, writing requires additional efforts. Efforts such as gathering data and knowing what people has found out. Such as knowing who are the audience, and what do they know now. And how do we impress the knowledge upon them.