Reflections from the Field: Navigating My First Cross-Cultural Research Project
I just wrapped my first international UX research project — working across languages, time zones, and all kinds of unexpected moments. This isn’t a how-to. It’s a reflection on what helped me stay grounded (and human) when everything felt new, messy, and meaningful.
In May–June 2025, I joined a confidential international UX research project focused on job-seeking behaviors in Indonesia — my first-ever client project with a team based abroad.
My role involved moderating 1:1 interviews, localizing the discussion guide, and collaborating closely with a live interpreter to help global stakeholders grasp the local language and cultural context during IDI sessions. While the project details are under NDA, I was proud to help shape insights that reframed local user realities into narratives that made sense to international product teams.
Learning as a design researcher (or designer) is a never-ending journey. Donald Schön gave us the idea of a “reflective practitioner” to guide that path — and here I am, doing my own reflect-on-action moments after wrapping up my first international gig. You’ll also get a peek at some of my reflect-in-action moments — those real-time pivots and adjustments — because, as we all know, unexpected things always happen on the ground.
Hopefully, this reflection can help anyone out there who’s also feeling nervous about their first project with an international client — one who lives in a different timezone, speaks a different language, and probably builds products in a domain you’re only just getting to know.
🃏 Play the Newbie Card to Understand the Goal
Every time you step into research for a product you’ve never used, or into methods you’ve never tried, don’t hesitate to ask how things work in this “new environment.”
In most cases, researchers are invited into kickoff meetings without knowing the “nobler motives” behind the project — like which metrics the stakeholders are aiming to move, what hypotheses they’re working with, what their current reality looks like, or even what the product team is hoping to achieve. Sometimes, stakeholders do share some documents to help you get oriented — but you’ll still have follow-up questions.
Don’t hold back. Staying curious and asking the right questions is a reflection of your fearless and undefined mindset (with a touch of control) as a researcher or designer. That’s part of our job.
The reflection:
I realized that relying solely on back-and-forth chat to understand something new doesn’t work for me. I process new information best through voice or video calls. So that’s the approach I took here too.
Of course, finding a shared time slot between you and stakeholders is always a challenge. But I learned that the way I summarize my remaining questions in a message — or even sketch a diagram if the topic is abstract — before the meeting day helps a lot. It makes the follow-up call shorter and more focused, often under an hour, because the discussion materials are already prepared on both sides.
🎧 Setting Up Online Sessions with a Live Interpreter
Let’s move on to another new experience I had in this project: setting up online interviews with a live interpreter.
Before this, I had always conducted all sessions on my own in Bahasa Indonesia, then translated the insights into English later during the delivery phase. But in this project, we needed to involve a live interpreter — so that stakeholders could follow the session in real time.
So yeah! We ended up co-creating a new session flow tailored specifically for this kind of collaboration.
The reflection:
One thing I’m really grateful for is how open everyone was — me, the recruitment team, and the agency — to experiment quickly and adapt until we found a setup that worked for all sides. After a few trials, this is the setup we landed on. We used two rooms for every session:
- Zoom is the “Bahasa room”: Only the moderator and participant speak. Interpreter listens silently via a phone + headset.
- Hangout is the “English room”: Interpreter speaks on another device. Others (client, agency) observe silently and send questions through chat (and/or forward the questions to me in the Bahasa room).
Why this worked well: To prevent audio overlap, keep translation clear, and give everyone a focused experience.
Here’s a table to help you understand our roles in a session:
🗣️ Collaborating with the Interpreter During the Session
After sharing some of my lessons from the preparation phase, let’s move on to what I learned during execution — specifically, how I collaborated with the interpreter to make sure as much context as possible was delivered to the client in real time.
With limited time, a long list of questions, and the unpredictable pace of how fast participants talk (yes — we all know we’re supposed to mirror our participant’s tone and speed to build rapport, right?), it was nearly impossible for me to slow down my speech.
Naturally, this made it more challenging for the interpreter. Sometimes, complex responses had to be reduced into simpler phrases. This occasionally led to follow-up questions from other observers — questions that had, in fact, already been answered.
The reflection:
When this happened, I focused less on “why is this being repeated?” and more on “what question am I moving on to next?” I stayed on track and didn’t let the repetition throw me off.
But here’s the trick that really helped us: whenever I reached a bridge between topics — or at the very end of the session — I would intentionally recap what had just been discussed, and ask the participant to confirm it.
Why this worked well:
- 💬 It gave the interpreter a second chance to translate the key points clearly to the client
- 🔁 It allowed me to subtly repeat insights the observers may have missed, without awkwardly saying, “That was already answered earlier…”
- ❤️ It made the participant feel heard — like their input was being synthesized and valued
A small tactic — but one that worked beautifully for us.
⚠️ When Things Don’t Go as Planned: Handling the Unexpected
So far, I’ve talked about all the technical setup and prep behind the scenes. But the real challenge often lies in what happens once the session begins — because no matter how prepared you are, participants will always bring their own set of surprises.
Of course, unexpected things did happen once the sessions started — and they can cost you your connection with the participant if not handled mindfully. As researchers, we hope participants leave in at least the same emotional state as when they arrived. And how we deal with surprises during the session can really affect that.
💡 How I Gracefully Ended or Continued a Session with Respect
Case 1: Realizing the participant doesn’t meet the criteria (early in the session)
If this happens after the intro and warm-up but before you dig deep into the interview, I’d summarize how their background unfortunately doesn’t align with what we’re looking for. I’d explain that continuing might unintentionally lead to topics that aren’t relevant or might feel burdensome to them.
Then, I’d genuinely thank them for making the effort to go through the recruitment process and show up on time. The key is:
- Be transparent about the reason
- Appreciate their effort
- End the session with warmth and well-wishes
Case 2: Realizing the mismatch late in the session (¾ way through)
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This actually happened to me in this project. A participant mentioned a keyword that made me realize they didn’t meet a critical requirement. I wasn’t sure whether I should continue or stop.
So, once we wrapped up that section of the guide, I jumped to an urgent channel I had previously aligned on with the stakeholders and asked whether we should continue.
Luckily, at the beginning of the session, I had already introduced the observer team as “my teammates who may occasionally remind me if I forget to ask something.” I used that framing as my reflect-in-action pivot.
I told the participant:
“Okay, let me recap what you just shared — but before we continue, I just got a reminder from my team. I’ll check with them for a moment, is that okay?”
While waiting for the green light from the team, I intentionally summarized what the participant had said and asked them to confirm it. It bought time, and gave the interpreter another chance to translate those key points clearly to the observers.
Once I got confirmation to wrap up, I ended the session just like I would any other:
“I’ve checked through all my notes and questions that my team reminded just now, and that’s it — you’ve answered everything I needed. Thank you so much for your time and insight.”
Even though the data couldn’t be included in the final analysis, I still appreciated the participant’s time and effort as I would in any other insightful session.
The reflection:
- Always end with genuine gratitude, no matter the outcome. Even if you need to cut the session short, the participant still made an effort to show up.
- Set expectations early on the opening of your discussion guide that you have teammates observing who may occasionally step in with reminders — this gives you a natural excuse to pause for checks later.
- Align on an urgent communication channel with your team, and use it between script sections — not in the middle of a sensitive question.
- While waiting on decisions, use the moment to recap what’s been said — this helps the participant feel seen, and helps the interpreter keep the client looped in.
😶 Dealing with Awkward Silences and Participant Struggles
Yes, I faced awkward silences in this project — when a participant was hard to “crack,” or when people popped in and out of the room, or when the connection was unstable.
In those moments, I kept hearing Yoel’s advice from my research training class:
“If you feel like you can hold the space, keep going — before the participant decides to end it themselves.”
🧠 How I Helped Participants Keep Going Despite Hurdles
Step 1: Ask them.
Most of the time, I could still sense how the participant was feeling — through tone or facial expression — and asked:
“Hey, despite the connection, shall we try to continue? If needed, we could turn off video — what do you think?”
Surprisingly, even if they seemed unsure, most were still willing to continue — and answered thoughtfully.
Once, I completely lost connection. But I knew I could count on my reliable recruitment team to check in with the participant and confirm whether they were okay to continue.
So yes — always ask first. Only stop when the participant truly decides to.
But what if they say yes… but they’re clearly struggling?
It happened. One participant in this project was visibly distracted after a connectivity issue and team members walking in and out. I could tell he wasn’t absorbing my questions properly anymore.
So what did I do? These were my reflect-in-action steps, taken one after another to keep the session going:
- I paused after each answer then offered them a short break (“Want to grab a drink or take a quick bathroom break?”)
- I reprioritized my script and focused on the most important questions
- I softened my tone, sat more attentively, used more casual and affirming language
- I reminded them gently: “In your own words, what’s your take on this? There’s no right or wrong.”
At the end, even though it took some effort, we were still able to get valuable insights — and I made sure to genuinely thank them for not giving up despite the tough conditions.
The reflection:
As long as the participant hasn’t explicitly decided to stop the session, and you’re still getting meaningful insights — even if it’s slower or messier than usual — it’s totally valid to continue. Just adjust with care.
🧳 Wrapping Up: What I’m Taking with Me
This project reminded me that even when you’re the most prepared person in the room, research will still surprise you. And that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with embracing the many possible outcomes that come with ambiguity. (Yes, I’m definitely still learning how to balance my ambiguity lever these days.)
From learning how to collaborate across time zones and languages, to gracefully navigating the messiness that often comes with real people in real-life contexts — I learned to stay grounded, adaptable, and intentional with every choice I made in the moment.
More than anything, I’m walking away from this experience with a deeper appreciation for:
- 🧭 The clarity that comes from asking “silly” questions early on
- 💬 The power of being present and human in interviews — even if it’s slower or messier than usual
- 🎧 The rhythm of collaborating live with interpreters and distributed teams
- 🙏 And the strength of pushing through the research session even though your heart screaming with the challenge
If you’re about to take on your first cross-cultural or international research project, I hope this gives you a glimpse of what’s possible when you stay curious, flexible, and rooted in empathy — both for your users and for yourself.
