Intercultural Awareness & Design

Tu/e Elective

In the first dimension it surprised me that Power distance has a correlation with history and language, I found that a very interesting link. From the third dimension I’ll remember to look at the masculinity of a country before going to a job interview, to make sure that I am not too humble and thus in their eyes under-qualified.
Uncertainty avoidance is something I experienced a lot with my Greek friend. For some reason he was always laughing at how much we stick to the rules in Holland, yet I think we only do so if we feel that it’s a good or necessary rule. After the chapter I understood where it was coming from, the Greek people tend to have an extreme amount of rules, yet define this authority.

Due to my own viewpoint I at first did not notice the preference of the writer towards long-term orientation. I wonder if one or the other is really more desirable?
“Indulgent cultures will tend to focus more on individual happiness and well being, leisure time is more important and there is greater freedom and personal control” The last dimension is again closely related to my vision; on how the individual can reach happiness. Now that I know this I might want to take a look at my vision again or keep it the same whilst being aware that it is not applicable in various countries.

From the knowledge that I gained during this course I would like to take the dimensions into account when dealing with intercultural design. And, maybe even more important: including users of that country during the design process to not make unnecessary mistakes. I still have the tendency to design something and then ask the user’s opinion, however by doing this during the process time will be saved and give new insights can be given in an earlier state of the design.

Making mood boards gave me a lot of inspiration for the sketches, I think that without this I wouldn’t be able to sketch as much. Though making small tangible models is still the best way to explore ideas for me, I figured out that if you push yourself to draw over the threshold of inspiration you get more far-fetched and original ideas, which is worth sketching for. Last but not least, I really enjoyed making and designing the chairs.

"Brigitte volunteered to switch to another team, after the teams were already divided and her group already gave a presentation. She did double the work and I really appreciate her pro-active and positive, energetic attitude!." Cindy van Bremen