Heather Hyerin Im
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Memeterview: Meme-Based Culture Elicitation Tool for Cross-Cultural User Studies 




Memeterview is a meme-based elicitation tool designed to surface cultural nuances that are often difficult to articulate in conventional cross-cultural user research. By using memes as symbolic and emotionally expressive prompts, the tool enables participants to reveal implicit norms and interpretation frames while helping designers recognize gaps in their own assumptions.  Findings show that Memeterview enriches cultural understanding by facilitating more authentic, nuanced insights into users’ lived experiences.

Link

Author
Heather Hyerin Im (Advisor: Prof. Youn-kyung Lim)

Context
Master’s Thesis, 2022



Motivation


Designers working on global products often struggle to understand cultural norms that are tacit, emotionally charged, or difficult for participants to verbalize in traditional interviews. Memes, however, function as a shared symbolic language -- compact, humorous, and emotionally loaded. This project investigates how meme-based prompts can surface implicit cultural assumptions and reveal how people interpret everyday situations through culturally shaped lenses.


Approach 

Memeterview was developed through two studies with designers and researchers who conduct cross-cultural UX work.


  • Study 1: Understanding Designers’ Cultural Blind Spots: We conducted semi-structured interviews with domestic designers to investigate the challenges they encounter when interpreting users from different cultural backgrounds. Using inductive thematic analysis, we identified recurring difficulties related to articulating cultural differences, interpreting foreign users’ emotional cues, and recognizing the influence of their own cultural assumptions on research interpretations.

  • Study 2: Designing a Meme-Centered Probe: Insights from Study 1 informed the design of a meme-based elicitation module. The probe was iteratively refined through concept prototyping and pilot testing, enabling participants to respond to culturally relevant scenarios by selecting, remixing, or generating memes. This method leveraged the symbolic and affective properties of memes to surface tacit cultural expectations, discomforts, and interpretive frames that are typically underrepresented in standard interview formats.

  • Evaluation with Cross-Cultural Designers: We evaluated Memeterview with cross-cultural design practitioners to examine how the tool shaped their interpretive reasoning. Through analysis of interview data, usage artifacts, and designers’ reflective accounts, we found that the meme-centered probe facilitated the identification of mismatches between designers’ assumptions and participants’ lived experiences, supporting more nuanced cross-cultural understanding.