@Steve: Very true. I did not mean to imply that there are no cultural differences, and I realize that citing two examples does not prove any point at all. ) What I meant is that research is needed in any case to assess the situation. It’s useless to argue over a meeting with clients without doing the homework or to just follow the status quo. Proving our point regarding usability is made hard by the lack of good and conclusive research (to my knowledge) on the topic.

@Ada: Great quote and so true as well. This shows the difficulty we researchers can have doing our job in Asia. To me, it reinforces the importance of observation based research techniques, as well as one-on-one interviews, as opposed to say focus groups which although it is the most used research method, in most cases does not lead to any good objective results. (But it makes Focus Group a great tool for marketers who want to bias their research to prove their or their client’s point. So dangerous.)

Let me quote…
“There is an Asian expression that reflects a cultural prejudice against individuality: ‘The peg that stands out is pounded down.’ [...] Maintaining harmonious social relations is likely to take precedence over achieving personal success.”

“Social psychologists Heejung Kim and Hazel Markus asked Koreans and Americans to choose which object in a pictured array of objects they preferred. Americans chose the rarest object, whereas Koreans chose the most common object. Asked to choose a pen as a gift, Americans chose the least common color offered and East Asians the most common.”