So this is a few weeks old, but IKEA recently opened a store in the Middle East.
This is what happened …
While IKEA dealt with the situation with grace and self depreciation, it highlights the potential problems of different cultures – and departments – working together.
It’s all to easy to assume the designers should have read ‘same text, but in Arabic’ and worked out their job was to write IKEA in Arabic. But apart from the fact many designers believe their job is about the craft of what they’re given rather than the reason for it, language structure is hugely different in cultures and so many people feel it is better to take words literally than risk making the wrong assumption.
When I lived in China I had a shirt I loved.
I’d worn it so often, it was covered in patches basically holding it together and so in the end, I realised that if I wanted to keep wearing it, I’d have to get another one made.
Fortunately, the fabric market had loads of people who did this so I went there and asked them to make me the same shirt.
A week later I went to collect it, and what did I find?
A shirt that was identical to the one I had given them.
Right down to the rips and patches that was on the original.
In other words, I’d had them make me a shirt I still couldn’t wear.
And it was my fault.
Because when I said, “could you please make me a duplicate of this shirt”, I assumed they would get without the worn out bits … but that’s on me, not them and that’s why anyone who wants to work in other cultures or with other cultures needs to understand they have to communicate on the audiences terms, not on theirs.