The Repertory Grid Technique as a Method for the Study of Cultural Differences

With the emergence of the global marketplace, cross-cultural differences are becoming increasingly recognized as a key factor in the successful adoption of new products (Lee & Harada, 2000). It is thus not surprising that designers have begun to consider the role of culture in design and to develop methods and processes for taking cultural aspects into account when designing new products. Culture, according to Kluckhohn (1951), is rooted in the values that pervade the historically derived ideas that form a particular tradition. These ideas and values create patterned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting, which constitute the distinctive character of a human group. Culture, however, has been largely approached in the design field through generic, cross-domain constructs such as that of Hofstede’s (1984) cultural dimensions and Scwhartz’s (1992) cultural values (e.g., Marcus, 2000; Oshlyansky, Cairns, & Thimbleby, 2006; Tong & Robertson, 2008). Schwartz proposed that a taxonomy of seven distinct cultural value types can serve to distinguish different cultural groups. These value types have been found to be universal across cultures, but the relative dominance of each value type differs across different cultural groups. These value types can thus be used to predict attitudes towards external stimuli or behaviors. These approaches typically involve gathering information about cultural differences through questionnaires or interviews using previously validated and standardized items. One could, however, wonder about the fruitfulness of applying cross-domain cultural dimensions to domain-specific design choices. While an overall differentiation of two groups on a given cross-domain cultural dimension (e.g., the need for autonomy) might have certain design implications for the design of a given product, there might be plenty of other aspects that differentiate these two groups within a specific context. In this paper we propose a subjective approach to the exploration of culture in product design, based on Kelly’s (1955) theory of Personal Constructs. This approach takes individuals’ perceptions of products to be a carrier of implicit cultural insight,