Case Study: Globalization and Design

In December 2022, I worked with a team to design a cross-cultural concept related to vending machines. Our concept was needed to provide a solution to a problem somewhere in the world, to be implemented in a country where we do not live. Inspired by Beads4Life, a successful micro-retail project started in the early 2000s in Uganda (so successful that the project is now a self-sustaining civil organization in several African and South American countries with updated goals and a new name), we wanted our vending machine to empower micro-retail communities in emerging countries to have a further reach by being able to sell their products through our vending machines via partnerships with their host NGOs. The country we decided would be an ideal place to pilot our vending machines was the Netherlands. We used Hofstede's Insights tool and other sources to determine that the Netherlands is an ideal starting point for new-to-export companies, is comparatively affluent with a higher rating of individual philanthropy than most European countries, has an innovative business community, and strong links and logistics networks throughout Europe and beyond. The Netherlands is also home to a thriving vending machine (automaat) culture, which makes testing there ideal. Finally, I speak a little bit of Dutch, which made for easier user testing. We decided to call our vending machine company 'Wees de Wereld,' or 'Be the World.' The research was conducted by our group on micro-retail economies and communities and the large NGOs and other organizations that provide them with seed funding to being to build or rebuild their economies. We also needed to research how Dutch citizens might view these vending machines, what features they should have, design style, and more. I built a survey in Dutch using Google Surveys and sent the link through SurveyCircle, the University of Amsterdam, and through some Dutch friends for user testing on our concept. The responses we received gave us a much better idea of how the machines would be interpreted, where they should be placed, and what kind of features would be expected by Dutch people, as opposed to Americans, in order to globalize our design concept. We researched vending machine types by viewing the different styles of machines common in the Netherlands and determined that a machine with several inner rotating levels that could be spun for viewing was an ideal type, as it is a common type of machine seen throughout the Netherlands aside from the most popular automaat machine. However, according to our survey results, we added features so the machine was capable of receiving several types of payment, had a video screen so users could learn more about the community they would be supporting for any product in the machine, and that the video screen would also be an interactive touch-screen for other purposes, such as a short feedback survey post-purchase. For design, we studied the de Stijl art movement, which has been popular in the Netherlands for over a century. We wanted to create an updated de Stijl look for the machine. We finally created a logo, using a font type commonly used in the Netherlands, a cursive that is similar to the standard type of handwriting one might see by Dutch people. Since many survey participants said that the ideal location for the machines would be transportations hubs (bike stations, bus, and train stations, and even airports), we then optimized our study as though we were presenting the vending machines as a community service/small revenue option to NS, the Netherlands' governmental branch supervising all transportation services.