Digital Culture Shock: Who Creates Technology and Why This Matters

Reinecke, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington, offers an informative debut on cultural differences in technology. Most tech is built with the U.S. and Western markets in mind, Reinecke explains, and taking a one-size-fits-all approach can make even big corporations fail in markets they haven’t researched properly. For example, in South Korea, Naver.com is a more popular search engine than Google thanks to its search feature being more akin to a q&a format with user-generated answers. This approach, according to Reinecke, makes it better suited to a “collectivist society.” Similarly, Uber had a hard time breaking into Bangladesh because of the country’s culture of negotiating rates and the fact that “only 11% of Bangladeshis had access to the Internet in 2016.” Reinecke shares how her studies helped companies consider design changes they should make to their websites in order to increase conversion rates across countries and cultures, and she skillfully lays out her research findings, including that neighboring countries tend to have similar design preferences (for example, countries from Northern Europe prefer simple websites while countries from Southern Europe prefer more colorful ones). It makes for a fascinating study on culture and tech. (July)