How to measure the success of your technology across cultures?

Societies use innovation to solve problems. I did a recent study on how culture determines technology integration. This study focused on the use of healthcare technology in Toronto. I found strong examples of how culture impact technology integration. This leads to the question, if you’re building technology to transcend geographical borders or even for places with a large multi-cultural population; can we expect technology adoption and integration to be the same amongst all people?

Follow this link to see my presentation at the University of Toronto 23rd Annual Health and Human Rights Conference

The culture of a society thus determines the nature (form and content) of technological development and the evolution of technological culture. For example: Kenya became one of the world leaders in mobile payments; in a country with limited access to debit cards and even bank accounts, payments via SMS between private individuals have had a special role. We can also look to Uber where everything is done with a smartphone (request a ride, pay for it and even set the music to be played through the speakers of the vehicle on the way) had to be adjusted when it arrived in India; for the first time it began to accept cash.

There are a number of frameworks that were assessed for technology, integration the one developed in my study is the FITTEC framework which posits that for integration to occur there must be Fit between Task and Technology , Fit between Tasks and Individual , Fit between Technology and Individual, and the Environment and Culture.

How to measure the success of your technology across cultures?

To manage user adoption and integration teams must anticipate, measure and take an agile approach to development across cultures.

Step 1. Define culture.
Two camps have split in defining culture, one explicitly (Berry et al., 2002) versus symbolically (Hofstede, 1997). Recently the symbolic definition has seen more prominence as it relates to “the collective thoughts and behaviour that distinguishes members of one group from another”. Culture can be created within professions, geographic boundaries, race, religion etc. It’s important for your technology to know what culture means.

Step 2. Assess/Anticipate for gaps between user and technology introduction based on cultural elements.
Hypothesize and whiteboard how can you solve this. There are elements of culture that have a clear impact on technology integration; such as language barrier (DeVoss, Jasken, & Hayden, 2002), differences in objectives (Taylor, 1992), traditions and rituals (Lachner, von Saucken & Lindemann, 2015). It is important to assess what differences across cultures can impact your technology early on. A good way to develop some early findings is with User Interviews.

Step 3. Define an adoption goal across culture.
While most adoption goals are based on individual users, i’ve successfully garnered community support before individual adoption. There are elements of culture that makes it easy to align technology integration; both technology and Culture are
•Learned- through active teaching, and passive habits.
•Shared -meaning that it defines a group and meets common needs.
•Patterned -meaning that there is a recourse of similar ideas and practices (or use) shows up repeatedly in different areas of social life.
•Adaptive -which helps individuals meet needs across variable environments. •Symbolic -which means that there are simple and arbitrary signs that represent something more.
Understanding how your product can fit into these elements of culture will aid in not just adoption but proper integration.

Step 4. Select metrics to prove adoption success.
Decide which metrics prove adoption success across culture. Will you use geographic measures, community group buy -in? Successful first payment?

Step 5. Create an integration tracking plan.
The difference between adoption and integration is seen in how routine that technology has become. So if you checked your Instagram more than 3 times already today -congratulations it’s been integrated. A tracking plan will include: which events will be tracked, the Syntax and naming conventions for events and how often events will be tracked.

Step 6. Use a framework to analyse for integration
Frameworks like FITTEC will allow you to assess for fit between task, technology, individual, environment and culture. To learn more about this framework and how to apply it to your technology development contact me!

Step 7. Keep swimming i.e. testing.
Capture baseline metrics, implement any changes based on any barriers to integration. This is where having an integration tracking plan and a framework of analysis is important to learn which changes had a positive impact, then Measure again. Did the adopted changes have an impact? Are users using the platform for longer, achieving their goals more quickly, and becoming more engaged?

Remember an agile approach to product development is a journey, not a destination, and good teams never stop looking for ways to improve.