Last week, during MIX07, I sat in on a very interesting discussion (hosted by Aaron Marcus, Kelly Goto, Royce Lee, Ryan Freitas, and Surya Vanka) about global business and how are designs and technology decisions translate cross cultures.
As technology brings people together, and plays an increasing role in our lives, context becomes a more and more important factor that weighs into our business and design decisions. This is especially true when talking about cultural context. Not only do we need to factor in the multiple contexts within one culture, more and more we’re seeing challenges (and certainly opportunity) that cross multiple cultures.
The idea of simplicity, for example, which is seemingly having a great effect on design and business in the West, doesn’t work everywhere. In some cultures complexity is a desirable thing.
The panel didn’t offer a whole lot of practical advice, and I’m not sure how it could, but it’s not so high-level that it’s all academic theory either. If this sounds interesting, take a minute to head over to the MIX07 sessions area and look it up. Unfortunately I can’t seem to bookmark the session itself, and I’ll warn you the site there isn’t all that easy to get around, but the content itself is really good.
