Guide to International User Research
UX research is sensitive to the cultural differences of each country. Here you can find some considerations about the particularities of each country, where one of our partners is ready to assist you.
All Countries
Americas
Europe, Middle East, Africa
Asia Pacific
Australia
U1 Group
Australia
- It is typically easy to schedule one-on-one research for day-time for general population audiences, evening sessions may be required for more specific audience types.
- It is recommended to pay participants in cash rather than vouchers, typical amounts are $80-$100 for a one-hour one-on-one research session for a generic audience, and $100-$120 for a 90-minute group session.
- Wherever possible, restrict length of research sessions to 60 minutes to maintain participant motivation and engagement improve ease of recruitment.
- If a client wants to recruit from a customer list try to encourage them to use an external recruiter as there are significant hurdles that need to be addressed when releasing customer contact details to third parties. If a client insists then ask them to send an invitation to participate in research to their customers and then pass on details of all who express an interest in participation.
- Don't pay participants their incentive until the research session is complete. Some recruitment firms will manage payment of incentives on your behalf for an extra fee.
- Try to avoid running research sessions on Fridays, or at least Friday afternoons, to reduce the likelihood of no-shows.
- It is recommended to allow a 30-minute gap between research sessions.
- It is not necessary to create a detailed recruitment screener, Australian recruitment firms are accustomed to receiving a specification detailing the requirements for a research project and then prepare a screener for your approval.
Member:
Brazil
Try Consultoria
Brazil
- Test interface in the native language.
- Expect some participants to arrive late (hence work out a 15-min delay) into your scheduling of participants.
- Expect participants to be very talkative.
- Have a duplicity system for video and audio recordings.
- Don’t use a prototype with content in more than one language.
- Don’t think that Brazilian and European dialects of Portuguese are interchangeable.
- Don’t think that because you understand Spanish that you will understand Portuguese (when observing).
- Remember that in the southern hemisphere Christmas is the beginning of summer vacations.
- February/March – Carnival holiday.
- Generally avoid holidays at Tuesdays and Thursdays because people will take off Monday or Friday, too.
- Avoid to schedule research with children and parents during January, July and December because of vacation periods at school.
- Many people work late so plan on having sessions as late as 8 or 9pm.
Member:
Colombia
The Cocktail Analysis
Colombia
- If need to test something on a smartphone is better to specify on the screener what type of user the participant must be, since the penetration of both Android and Apple are pretty high.
- We usually conduct fieldwork in Bogota but for a major representation among the country, it is recommended to do it also at least in 2-3 cities according to the objectives of the projects (eg. Bogota and Medellin).
- Set up the interviews with 60 min between them. Colombian consumers not always arrive on time and that gap of time help to complete the day calendar in a better way.
Member:
Estonia
and Baltics
Trinidad Wiseman
Estonia
- Estonians can be difficult to approach.
- Facebook is a great way of finding test subjects, but nobody uses Twitter.
- Gift cards and chocolates are valid incentives (their value ranges between 2-100 euros depending on what you are testing).
- Generally it is not a good idea to call a potential recruit after 6pm.
- Don’t schedule sessions too close together, as it is very possible people will be running late and that will affect the time the session starts.
- January 1 New Year’s Day
- February 24 Independence Day
- April 18 Good Friday
- April 20 Easter
- May 1 Spring Day
- June 8 Pentecost
- June 23 Victory Day
- June 24 St. John’s Day
- August 20 Day of Restoration of Independence
- December 25 Christmas
- Try to avoid testing on weekends and specific holidays. During the summer people will move to the countryside and are generally harder to reach.
Member:
Finland
and Scandinavia
Digitalist
Finland
- January 1 New Year's Day
- January 6 Epiphany
- April 10 Good Friday
- April 12 Easter
- April 13 Easter Monday
- May 1 Vappu
- May 21 Ascension Day
- May 31 White Sunday
- June 19 Midsummer Eve
- June 20 Midsummer
- November 2 All Saints’ Day
- December 6 Independence Day
- December 24 Christmas Eve
- December 25 Christmas Day
- December 26 Boxing Day
- July is the most popular holiday month.
- Prefer weekdays.
- Evenings are ok.
Member:
France
Usabilis
France
- Conduct interviews and tests in French.
- Provide fake testing data, if there is a need to fill a form.
- Don't ask for any personal data (names, address, email, etc.) during the interview if you keep a recording. French law can be quite challenging on this matter.
- Don't plan any session during the weekend, bank holidays or peak holiday season (May, July/August, December).
- Testing time can depend on the target (student vs professional), but usually it's best to keep it during office hours (8am to 8pm).
Member:
Germany
Austria and Switzerland
Facit Digital
Germany
- Providing fake test data is advisable. If individual data is required, test people should be asked beforehand.
- Inform subjects beforehand about filming, sound recording and eye tracking. Ideally, let them additionally agree in writing before test.
- Remember that Germans tend to describe their feedback in more utilitarian terms rather than being descriptive regarding visual elements.
- Don't use scaled with opposite logic.
- Don't forget to always follow-up. Provide confirmation emails with directions, call them one day before testing and ask them to be there a few minutes earlier.
- Unlike in other countries, during school holidays recruitment doesn't get more difficult, some people have even better availability.
- Recruit can become more difficult when important events are taking place or the weather is nice outside.
- Most evenings (from 5pm to 10pm) because of working hours.
- Plan enough evening appointments.
Member:
Italy
UserTest/Lab
Italy
- Conduct interviews in local language.
- No-show rate is possible, plan spare participants.
- Schedule the research in advance, if possible.
- Expect differences in computer literacy based on socio-demographic variables.
- Having a good sense of Italian socio-demographic factors will help increase the amount of suitable participants gained.
- Providing fake test data is advisable. If individual data is required, this should be asked during recruiting.
- Do not schedule testing just before local bank holidays and on August.
- Do not include small cities in the sample, favor principal cities such as Milan, Rome and Naples.
- Not possible to give cash incentives, provide coupons (petrol, Amazon).
- Don’t do testing during peek holidays, including Christmas and Easter.
- No testing during August, all facilities are closed.
- Testing time depends on the target (pm for working people and students, am for retired people and housewives).
Member:
Japan
GPScale
Japan
- Be precise and aware of the questions you are giving to the audience.
- Make sure you are focusing on your target and their attributes.
- Participants are known to be timely and rarely appear as a “no show”.
- Schedule translators far in advance, the good ones are usually quite busy.
- Make the audience feel comfortable and invited, don’t overbear with irrelevant content or dismiss their answers.
- Targeting specific groups can be costly, in comparison to US and Europe.
- Don’t assume - always have content translated in Japanese, although most citizens learn English at a young age.
- Avoid the last week of December and the first week of January.
- Golden week – This falls at the end of April/first week of May.
- Obon Summer Holiday period – The second week of August through the middle of the third week of August.
- Housewives – weekday mornings and afternoons.
- University students – weekday and weekend afternoons.
- Full time workers – weekday evenings (after 7pm) or weekends.
Member:
Mexico
The Cocktail Analysis
Mexico
- Mexico is a pluricultural country with substancial behavorial differences, due to the large size of the country, that's why is recommended to replicate the project in different cities, being Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara the most common ones.
- Most people use an Android operating system as a smartphone, so it is important to have devices that record or allow browsing-in, different versions to avoid losing details.
- It is advisable not to make groups whose participants belong to very different socio-economic segments, since those with the highest purchasing power can speak from a particular context and consequently, inhibit or introvert those who have less access.
- Ask participants to arrive one hour before starting, is recommended as the city and distances make it impossible for people to arrive on time.
Member:
Netherlands
Happy Labs
Netherlands
- Invite participants to come 10 minutes earlier.
- Invite a spare or floater to prevent no-shows.
- Take about 2 weeks for finding the best matching participants.
- Ask to much about personal details, work with dummy details instead.
- Don’t be to formally, It’s best to have an open and relaxed conversation.
- Main holidays are:
- New years day (1 January)
- Good Friday (end March to mid-April)
- Easter (end March to mid-April)
- Kingsday (27 April)
- Liberation day (5 May)
- Ascension Day (mid-May)
- Pentecost (end May to mid-June)
- Christmas to NYE (25 to 31 December)
- It’s best to schedule during daytime.
- Hard to reach audiences can be planned during evenings or sometimes testing remotely is a better option.
- National holidays can be hard, depending on the audience your looking for.
- For example parents and/or kids are easier to find during the holiday season.
Member:
Poland
Extra Hut
Poland
- Use as many channels as you can to recruit users for research and describe very precisely research assumptions in the public offer (info about salary is highly expected).
- Verify users' details in recruitment process to identify and reject experienced UX research participants, which you can easily find in the market.
- Always prepare a reserve list of users for research (about 30-40% more) in case of sudden absences.
- Always inform users about any recording or filming before the research, ask for formal permission.
- When it comes to individual interviews, better talk in Polish. Not many people speak English on a level which gives them possibility to express themselves freely.
- You cannot pay participants (with money) without any formal contracts (financial law issues).
- Do not ask users for the use of their personal information, always prepare a scenario based on some fake information.
- Do not pay users in advance, always after finishing all tests and interviews.
Member:
Portugal
Xperienz
Portugal
- Warn participants beforehand to make sure they keep their appointment.
- Participants expect to receive an incentive. The easiest way is to give them a gift card that can be used in several stores.
- Deliver the incentive right after they sign the consent form.
- The interface should be in the native language, even though English is also suitable.
- Avoid scheduling sessions on Mondays and Fridays, as it will be harder to recruit participants for those days.
- Don’t schedule interviews too close together (allow at least a 30 minute gap between sessions). This will accommodate both tardy participants as well as ones with longer sessions.
- Don’t plan more than 5 or 6 test sessions a day.
- Avoid doing testing during peak holidays, like the Christmas Holidays and Easter. Peak Summertime (July and August) should also be avoided.
- Avoid testing just before or after public Holidays as most people will take extended weekends on those dates.
- Carnival is an unofficial Holiday, but still observed by government and private workers.
- Unlike some other countries, most Holidays in Portugal are observed on the day on which they fall.
- Januray 1 New Year's Day
- Good Friday
- April 25 Freedom Day
- May 1 Labour Day
- June 10 Portugal Day
- August 15 Feast of Assumption
- October 5 Republic Day
- November 1 All Saints Day
- December 1 Restoration of Independence Day
- December 8 Immaculate Conception
- December 25 Christmas Day
- Usually it’s easier to recruit for late afternoon (after work), after 6pm.
- Testing can start as early as 9AM.
- Testing time depends on the target, but allow for at least an hour.
Member:
Singapore
UX Consulting
Singapore
- Do basic conversation screening of participants through phone calls.
- Official form to ask participants’ permission for video recording for any form of research interviews.
- Plan for minimum 30 minutes buffer in between interview sessions.
- Send gentle reminders (sms or email) to participants on the scheduled session one day before and one hour before.
- Not allowed to collect full identification number from participants for incentives collection.
- Do not schedule any interview research sessions not within central business district area.
- Interviewers do not need to dress formally when conducting research interview sessions.
- 2019:
- June 5 Hari Raya Puasa
- August 9 National Day
- August 11-12 Hari Raya Haji
- October 27-28 Deepavali
- December 25 Christmas Day
- 2020:
- January 1 New Year's Day
- January 24-28 Chinese New Year
- April 10 Good Friday
- May 1 Labour Day
- May 7 Vesak Day
- May 24-25 Hari Raya Puasay
- July 31 Hari Raya Haji
- August 9-10 National Day
- November 13-14 Deepavali
- December 25 Christmas Day
- Weekdays starts from 10am - 6pm (Company's policy for not asking team members to do research in evenings or weekends).
Member:
Spain
The Cocktail Analysis
Spain
- Set up the interviews with 30 min between them. Spanish participants use to arrive just on time, but sometimes due to the displacement and distance show up a bit later.
- Flexibility and openness with the recruitment agency: it is convenient to make it part of the team. In this way, if complications arise (eg. it is difficult to find a profile or a participant has just canceled) the agency will have the confidence to tell you and offer you viable solutions or find them together.
- Do not set a fieldwork without checking bank holidays: Spain still has a strong cultural and folk tradition that affects work calendar. Depending on the city and the dates, the recruiting might be difficult and this needs to be considered in advance.
- If recruiting people from a database, make sure there are extra participants; it is frequent to face dropping outs.
- January 1 New Year’s Day
- January 6 Epiphany
- Easter Maundy Thursday and Good Friday
- May 1 Labour Day
- August 15 Assumption of Mary
- October 12 Spain’s National Day
- November 1 All Saints’ Day
- December 6 Spanish Constitution Day
- December 8 Immaculate Conception
- December 25 Christmas
- Do not conduct fieldwork on Friday or the day before bank holidays if possible.
- In August, most people are on holidays and making the fieldwork harder in terms of recruitment.
Member:
Turkey
Userspots
Turkey
- The people of Istanbul are well-known for their hospitality. They love to meet new people and never hesitate to talk to tourists.
- Do visit local and historical bazaars.
- Do drink tea and coffee
- Do visit a hammam, a Turkish bath.
- Do up travel on the ancient and modern history of Turkey.
- Do not criticise the Turkish nation, culture or flag.
- June 03-06 National Holiday
- June 07 Government Holiday
- July 15 National Holiday
- August 12-15 National Holiday
- August 30 National Holiday
- October 29 Republic Day
- Housewives – weekday mornings and afternoons.
- University students – weekday mornings and afternoons.
- Full time workers – weekday mornings and afternoons.
Member:
United Kingdom
REO
United Kingdom
- Book additional standby participants as no-shows can be common.
- Confirm with participants the day before and day of to ensure attendance.
- Offer an incentive. Participants typically expect cash in exchange for their involvement.
- Consider the types of insights you need. Insights and behaviour can differ between cities, especially London.
- Be respectful of people’s time, they are often fitting sessions in amongst their work schedule.
- Do not book sessions too closely together, delays due to traffic or public transport can be common.
- Do not exceed the booked session time.
- Summer bank holiday – 31 August 2020
- Christmas Day – 25 December 2020
- Boxing Day – 28 December 2020
- New Year’s Day – 1 January 2021
- Good Friday – 2 April 2021
- Easter Monday – 5 April 2021
- Early May Bank Holiday – 3 May 2021
- Spring Bank Holiday – 21 May 2021
- Summer Bank Holiday – 30 August 2021
- Christmas Day (substitute day) – 27 December 2021
- Boxing Day (substitute day) 28 December 2021
- Weekdays are typically fine.
- Evenings work better for the construction industry or contractors.
Member:
USA East
Key Lime Interactive
USA East
- Obtain permission from qualitative research respondents upfront if recording their audio, video, or screen. Get an authorization form signed in advance for remote studies so that you open in a personable way, not simply kicking-off with paperwork.
- Feel comfortable sending reminders for upcoming sessions both personally and/or automated.
- Ensure any materials used in advance of or during a session are in English.
- Ask open-ended questions to weed out respondents that might not be forthcoming with their responses.
- To attract your ideal target profile, ensure that the incentive offered aligns with the participants' profession, and indicates that you value their time.
- Don't conduct/schedule interviews during Holidays unless you are clear about this from the onset. This often increases the likelihood of no-shows.
- Don’t ask leading or closed-ended questions. Aim for open-ended questions.
- It’s important to screen technical knowledge or comfort for remote studies. Not all participants can handle remote tech setup.
- New Year’s Day - January 1st
- Memorial Day - Last Monday of May
- Independence Day - July 4th
- Labor Day - First Monday of September
- Thanksgiving Day - 4th Thursday of November
- Christmas Day - December 25th
- Testing time depends on the target audience, however, most participants expect testing to be conducted during or at the beginning/end of the business day.
Member:
USA West
Gotoresearch
USA West
- When planning to record qualitative research gain permission from respondents upfront if recording their audio, video, or screen. If it is a remote study be sure to get an authorization signed before the study.
- Be sure to prepare a good screener that asks open-ended questions to weed out respondents that might not be forthcoming with their responses.
- Ensure any artifacts that are used for research and shown to the participants are in English.
- Provide an incentive that shows that you value the participants time - allocate an amount based on their profession.
- Do not ask leading or closed-ended questions aim to ask open-ended questions.
- Try not to ask questions about what users will do in the future.
- Don't schedule interviews during Holidays as that will increase your chances of having no-shows.
- Don't schedule interviews too close together; you may have participants that show up late or have technical issues.
- Memorial Day
- Independence Day
- Labor Day
- Thanksgiving Day
- Christmas Day
- Testing time depends on the target.
Member:
