Cost-Justifying Usability, 2nd Edition

11.5.1 Bilingual Facilitation

One of the common ways that people try to cut corners in international research

is to study only people who speak the development team’s language. This can

be particularly tempting for researchers who are native English speakers and who

tell themselves that English is the lingua franca, especially with technical user

populations. In general, however, this is a poor idea. It restricts your sample to

a group that may not be representative. In addition, a person’s own estimates of

their fluency in a foreign language may be inaccurate. There is also a big dif-

ference between being able to make some sense of written material ...