Mitsue Links: “The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living”: Examining the reasons behind higher recruiting costs in Japan

Of course there are differences amongst cultures and countries when it comes to global usability testing. Sometimes, these differences can be very noticeable, especially in the context of an international usability study where comparisons across countries can be succinctly listed on one excel spreadsheet.

The Problem

However, the reasons behind the differences are usually not as clear. When a difference is surprising or unexpected, it can create a difficult situation for all parties involved. Even if we try to be understanding of differences, it can be very easy to be suspicious of them and wonder if they are valid. Unless a certain fact is common knowledge or easily verifiable, such as the existence of a bank holiday, weather condition, or currency conversion, it is natural to wonder whether it is pervasive to an entire geographical region, or whether it can be avoided by shopping around. However, it can be an equally difficult situation for the local partner or for the usability agency on the other side to be able to anticipate and diffuse this kind of suspicion.

One of perhaps many unique facets of the Japanese usability market is that recruiting costs are generally higher here than in other comparably priced countries, and sometimes even with a large budget it may not be possible to fulfill exact recruiting requirements (http://www.globaluserresearch.com/country-facts/japan). As we are located in Tokyo, Japan, we at Mitsue-Links have had many foreign companies react to us with surprise (and usually dismay) at our recruiting costs. Other countries explain high recruiting costs or unavailability of certain distributions in a fairly simple way, such as a low population; but, in our case there is no easily verifiable fact we can point to in order to provide a simple explanation (and on the contrary, Japan has no shortage of population!). So how do we get foreign potential clients and partners to understand and accept the higher cost of recruiting in Japan?

The Solution, Step 1: a Socratic exercise

We decided to respond to this struggle by taking part in a Socratic exercise. We feel that if we challenge ourselves to examine the situation with an objective and critical eye, and can find reasons to explain the situation that we ourselves can accept, then perhaps we can begin to convince others to accept the situation, too. Accepting this unintuitive and undesirable difference requires more than just knowledge of the existence of this difference; it requires an understanding of the reasons behind it.

The first step we took to achieve an understanding of this problematic situation was to verify its actual existence. We called every possible partner recruiting company, with renewed vigor, in order to absolutely confirm that this was the best price we could achieve for our foreign and domestic clients. This step was an important one. As we gathered Japanese prices and compared them to other markets, it wasn’t so hard to imagine the disbelief foreigners were feeling. In fact, their suspicion became contagious. Thus, we negotiated with a far different attitude than before, and could truly satisfy ourselves that we tried our best to get the prices that our clients desired.

After we accepted that, at least for the time being, the fact was “confirmed,” the second step was to look inwards, and brainstorm possible reasons to explain this situation. With all our wondering, we must admit that we still do not know the reasons for sure (no scientific research was done, although perhaps we might do a study in the future). But, as we started to examine the possibilities, our understanding of the situation grew from where it was before, and so did our peace of mind.

Here are some of the reasons we came up with that may explain why recruiting costs are higher in Japan.

1) Strong notions of privacy

Many of our reasons support the idea that perhaps Japanese people as a whole are just not very interested in being participants. Thus, because there are fewer willing participants around, it is more difficult to find appropriate participants (especially amongst such a large population), and thus more costly for recruitment companies to perform the task.

Japanese people have a history of guarding personal thoughts and placing value in not revealing true emotions to others, in order to achieve a greater goal for society. It is not common practice here to share personal thoughts with an unfamiliar person, especially if those thoughts are negative. Thus, the usability testing situation, where a participant sits next to the moderator (an unfamiliar person), and must share critical thoughts, is innately uncomfortable for many Japanese people.

Furthermore, due to sensitivity to private issues, there are many topics that companies are interested in testing that Japanese people are not willing to discuss. For example, although there are many companies and research institutions that are interested in testing products whose prime markets may be suffering from a disease, in Japan not only is it costly to find these participants, but may not even be possible, due to a strong sense of privacy regarding health and medical related topics.

2) Strong notions of community

As a community based society, Japan is a place where contribution to the group is of supreme importance, and individual contribution is not as prime of a focus. I am told that these values are ingrained in the education system and in the home, where from a young age it is taught that to be the focus of attention is embarrassing and should be avoided. Thus, many Japanese people are reluctant to share opinions or don’t enjoy doing it because they have less experience doing so and may not believe in the value of their own opinions.

Since a usability test requires individual focus on the participant and the individual will likely have disagreeable thoughts elicited from a more knowledgeable person, it can be a problematic and undesirable situation. This further lowers the number of people interested in being a participant without actually lowering the population of the country.

3) Inflexible work schedules

It is usually difficult in Japan for participants to leave work for an hour or two during the day in order to participate in a usability test. In addition, many Japanese people work long hours, and find it difficult to plan schedules in advance when they might have to make themselves available for work. Therefore, often studies are done in the evening or, most often, on the weekends, and perhaps this may make people more unwilling to participate in a test, since the timing usually intrudes heavily on their free time.

4) Strict privacy laws

The importance of privacy in general sentiment also manifests itself in Japanese privacy laws. These laws strictly regulate the handling of private information, such as names, addresses, and telephone numbers. Thus, recruiting companies need to adhere strictly to rules regulating compilation of panels. This results in a time-consuming and costly experience for them. (For more information please see http://www.jonesday.com/pubs/pubs_detail.aspx?pubID=S2920.)

Thus, these privacy laws also prevent us from using the cheaper methods of recruiting that are sometimes utilized in other countries, such as undertaking recruitment responsibilities by ourselves in certain situations. Further, we have even had clients who are willing to give us lists to recruit from, but we are not authorized by Japanese law to receive such information, and thus are forced to use the much more expensive channel of a recruiting company.

5) High standards of service

The standard for good service is set extremely high in Japan. The convenience store is a good example, since it is not a place where I expect particularly good service. At every convenience in Japan I am welcomed as I walk in (loudly, and by every employee in the store). When there is a line, as many employees as possible will get behind a cash register, to facilitate a quicker exit flow. And, I was once followed for two blocks by an employee from 7-11 trying to catch me to return change that, in a daze, I had completely forgotten.

This high standard for service probably has an effect on recruiting prices. Service tends to be detail oriented, and the high level of importance placed on good service tends to result in very conservative behavior. Thus, participants are highly scrutinized and evaluated, which is of course time-consuming and expensive. Furthermore, in the interest of providing the best service, the time to perform the task will often be overestimated, so that the company can be sure to have found an appropriate and desirable panel by the promised time. To underestimate price or time, particularly in this type of task which is usually time-sensitive and an outsourced cost, is basically unthinkable, and will always be avoided in favor of higher cost.

It seems that cultural, legal, and logistical issues converge in unique combination to raise the cost of recruiting in Japan. Instead of viewing these higher costs in a vacuum, considering them amidst this background provides a richness that makes this cost begin to appear more reasonable and easier to accept.

The Solution, Step 2: your valuable input

The Japanese market is still maturing, and we are constantly working towards contributing to the growth in the maturity of this market, in the past through the construction of an on-site User Studio, fully equipped with a Tobii eye tracking system, and most recently by introducing unmoderated remote usability testing in Japan (through our UserWhiz service powered by UserZoom – we apologize that our page is not in English yet).

However, it is not just new technology and new services that adds to maturity. Enhanced perspective contributes as well. Through this experience, we have learned the depth that doing international studies can bring to our overall quality of service, even to our domestic work. When doing domestic studies, where practices and costs of companies have much less variation, we were not placed in a position to question our practices. Contributing to the international usability arena has pushed us to compare our practices, methods, and facilities to international standards, and in turn grow as professionals with a wider perspective on the entire user experience field. We have been reminded to challenge our assumptions, and in turn our heightened understanding of our own situation allows us to improve our services and communication to better serve all of our clients, foreign and domestic alike.

As we continue to examine this situation and others, we would be very interested in your comments: Have you ever dealt with a situation like this? Do you know why recruiting costs in Japan are expensive? Is there anything about practices in your country that foreign clients or other foreign agencies find surprising or shocking?

By Reva Glassman (Mitsue-Links)
A Director of the Usability Team at Mitsue-Links (Japan), an information integrator with an array of services centered on digital content.