TCUK 2013 - Andrew Peck - When culture meets content

1. When Culture Meets Content
Andrew Peck

2. What do these mean to you?
 5-a-day
 Vegetables
 Prayers
 Yellow (adj.)
 Cowardly
 Pornographic
 Moon (symbol)
 Witchcraft
 Religion

3. What was investigated?
 A “cultural update” to the language
materials
 Cultural insiders were asked about their
opinion of the changes
 Image and textual changes were
investigated
 Cultural insiders profiled their own culture

4. Why?
- The outsider perspective
 Physical contact between male/female
 Revealing clothing
 Love, sex or non-marriage male/female
relationships (LSNM)
 Alcohol
 Pork
 Religion
 Name/face/place (NFP)
 Other (cultural)
 Other (non-cultural)

5. What was learnt?

6. The reactions to images

7. The problem with outsider
perspectives
 Big “C” cultural assumptions
 Lots of negatives
 The use of stereotypes in generating
audience profiles

8. Applications to Technical
Communications
 User communities must be accurately
profiled
 Similar to accessibility focus groups
guidelines
 The use-case comes first
 Members of other cultures may need more
information, not less.

9. Importance in the future




The global marketplace
The multi-cultural workplace
The pan cultural individual
The unknown final recipient
 Does this matter?
 Stereotypes
 Does this matter?

10. Laudable Attitudes
 “This game was developed by a multicultural
team of various faiths and beliefs.”
 We view Equality and Diversity as critical
components in the generation and
maintenance of Operational Effectiveness,
and not for reasons of political correctness.
We values the inherent qualities in every
individual, respects their differences, and
enables them to make the selfless
commitment that we demand in the
knowledge that they will be treated fairly.

11. QUESTIONS?