The influences of culture on user experience

Abstract

In the last years, some studies about how cultural differences influences user experience (UX) have started being published. Most of these studies concluded that cultural differences really affect UX. These studies were conducted in different countries, using different methods and led by researches with different cultures. Observing these points, the main objective of this review is to map the work in this area and to suggest a research guideline for similar work. First, a systematic literature review was conducted in the main academic search engines, using many related keywords. The search engines returned 1227 studies and all abstracts were read and evaluated according to the acceptance criteria. Twenty three remaining studies were analyzed in detail. Results showed that the Hofstede’s definition of culture and cultural differences is the most commonly used definition in this area, most studies used questionnaires to evaluate if the culture really influences UX and regarding the results, the majority, 87 %, confirm that it does. Based on this analysis, we identify and propose a guideline to replicate this kind of work in other scenarios. This guideline may represent a significant contribution to the area, perhaps enabling an increase in the number and standardization of certain cross-cultural studies, in the development of new techniques and in the relevance of this subject during UX projects.