Lesson 5: Global Product Design

Examples of Cross-Cultural Product Design

It should be noted that three of our examples are from Apple. This is not a reflection of how desirable Apple products are, rather they were chosen because of Apple's revolutionary perspective of creating products for a global market. Their focus is how can this product reach all markets throughout the world. This is not adapting a product to fit a global market, but creating a product for a global market. What follows are examples of how products have been adapted to fit a global market.

Apple i-phone

The i-phone is designed to be culture free on its basic design, but become adaptable to a given culture

The Apple i-phone allows the user to interface with 34 different languages. It uses 40 different keyboard layouts and language specific features. It has built in dictionaries that cover 37 languages and dialects. It has a voice over and voice control that reads 21 languages and understands 24 voice commands. This allows voice control to understand speakers using three different forms of Chinese (Cantonese, Taiwanese and mainland China); three forms of English (Australian, United Kingdom, and the United States); two forms of French (Canada and France), Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal) and Spanish (Mexico and Spain) as well as several single forms of language. This allows the i-phone to be used across a variety of countries, languages and cultures.

Refrigerators

The extremes illustrate key cultural values that will determine how each refrigerator is designed and used by each culture. What follows are some visual examples of refrigerators from Europe, Japan and the United States. Each has etic (common across cultures) and emic (unique to specific features) features. See if you are able to identify common and unique features of each culture.

As can be seen the extremes illustrate key cultural values that will determine how the refrigerator is designed and used by each culture. What follows are some visual examples of refrigerators from Europe, Japan and the United States. Each has emic (common) and etic (unique) features.

European Refrigerator

United States Refrigerator

Japan Refrigerator

So what do you notice? The U.S. is the largest and the only one with a water/ice dispenser and a freezer that takes up 1/3 of the fridge. Japan's is the most energy efficient as with multiple doors allowing for spaces with different temperatures. Each section has its own door resulting in less energy and cold loss. All of the refrigerators use multiple storage areas. The following table summarizes some other similarities and differences.