In the recent years, design and UX research have developed a long way in investigating about the users and their context. Along that path, understanding user latent experience (ULX) has become the contemporary focus for many UX researches. ‘Generative Session’ technique, one of the prominent approaches for acquiring this knowledge, was depicted to contain some inefficiency and unreliability in data collection upon applied in non-original-national contexts (in this case, Korea and Vietnam). However, the causes of this matter were suspected that it was not only due to the national cultural difference but also due to the influence of different discipline. Moreover, the effects of discipline would possibly override those of national culture. This study was conducted to clarify the dominant source of bias to research results-user participation of ULX research method (in this case, ‘Generative Session’ technique).
It was aimed to challenge the way ‘cross-culture influence’ has been considered in design research field: should there be better way than profiling users solely based on nationality in multi-national research project for product specification. The outcome will contribute in the understanding and debate for contemporary product/business development: globalization or localization.
The study was conducted through a customized package of ‘Generative Sessions’ containing two tasks and several supporting questionnaires. The construction of two-task test was to observe the user response in different levels of task complexity. The user generated results were analyzed in qualitative- content analysis framework. The qualitative analysis data from main test were combined with the data from evaluation and the pretest questionnaires to be meta-analyzed with statistical quantitative methods.
Major findings through this research included (1) Nationality factor influenced remarkably on user performance but not much on user attitude. In contrast, discipline factor influenced significantly on every elements of user participation. (2) The gaps of user attitude and performance with nationality as the function maintained same levels while the effects from discipline factor intensified upon the increase of task complexity and change of ask characteristic. Overall, Discipline factor dominated nationality factor, hypothesis [H0] were (generally) supported, insisting on the importance of considering users’ disciplines in designing ‘Generative sessions’ and ULX research.
Based on the findings and insights, guideline for method enhancement was suggested. Main recommendation focused on noting on what works with which particular national and disciplinary group and suggesting different ways of presenting instruction and material provision for different groups of participants. This guideline can be used to increase the efficiency and reliability of data collected during ‘Generative Sessions’.
