| In global companies, decisions of product adaptation and standardization have traditionally been made based on designers' intuitive knowledge or a reactive approach, where adapting to local needs is not anticipated in advance, but occurs as problems affecting sales figures emerge. The factors considered in these decisions have mostly involved standards and government regulations, organizational models, and industry conditions. Little attention has been paid to user-related factors. More recently, some companies have chosen to deal with this problem by employing social scientists. This is nevertheless still not unproblematic because of the obvious difficulties of transforming ethnographic data into an actionable form for designers. Also, as the product development time gets shorter, the long-term commitment needed for fieldwork is often perceived to be impractical and costly.;This study examines product adaptation requirements from a user-centered perspective. In so doing, a user-value-based adaptation framework is proposed to assist designers in their decision-making regarding product adaptation and standardization. The data were collected through observations and interviews with 28 urban families in Turkey and the United States, focusing on the use of and the value assignment to kitchen appliances. The analysis resulted in a comparative descriptive account of how users shape kitchen appliances in their local contexts of use in Turkish and American kitchens. Four major categories of user value were identified in the data. These include utility value, social significance value, emotional value, and spiritual value. These categories were then further analyzed to explore how the elements of local context and the properties of product contribute to their formation. The findings of this study generate knowledge that provides a point of departure for articulating a set of Cultural Human Factors specifically as they relate to design, create an informed basis for product evaluation and applied user research, and, from a theoretical standpoint, foster the notion that value is created through experience with products. |
