Situated cultural differences: A tool for analyzing cross-cultural co-creation

Designers in the global era are increasingly challenged to design for a diverse cultural context. Both ethnographic and participatory design research methods are integral for conducting cultural inquiries. Co-creation offers an interactive setting for researcher to gain meaningful insights into the tacit and latent aspects of culture. The analysis framework for this study is based on the theoretical construct of situated cultural differences. In the process of co-creation, situated cultural differences become a diagnostic tool used by researchers to categories participants’ everyday experiences into meaningful cultural categories. This paper focused on identifying the different situated differences used by participants during the co-creation sessions and creating a typology of differences. The analysis was focused on how the research team interpreted the situated differences to establish the underlying cultural values. Four categories of situated cultural differences emerged from the data: material-observable, materialideological, behavioral-observable, and behavioral-ideological. The analysis shows that participants preferred the material and behavioral-ideological types of situated differences. This study provides a methodological approach for analyzing cultural differences and integrating diverse cultural aspects into a systematic framework. The theoretical framework of cultural situated differences and the typology of differences provides a framework for designers, design researchers and corporations to identify, categorize and design for cultural differences.