User Research in South Africa

South Africa is the southern most country on the African continent and since apartheid ended in 1994 has become a popular destination for travelers. Unusually, South Africa has three cities that act as capitals: Pretoria, Cape Town and Bloemfontein. However, the largest urban area is actually Johannesburg and Durban is the main industrial centre. That means for anyone planning research in South Africa you have to seriously consider how you achieve proper representation. This isn’t helped by a relatively low internet speed which makes remote research a bit “hit-and-miss”.

There are 12 official languages in South Africa with almost 50 percent of the Black African population speaking either Swati, Ndebele, Xhosa and Zulu. The second largest group are the Sotho-Tswana who speak Sotho, Pedi and Tswana and there are two other Black African groups that speak Tsonga and Venda. The majority of white South Africans speak Afrikaans and the remainder English. It goes without saying that pre-research in understanding who your target users are is vital for a successful research project.

UX24/7 is a global design research agency that operates with our own team of Senior UX Researchers. All our Senior UX Researchers have been evaluated as part of their joining process to ensure they have the skills, capabilities and experience to deliver user research and UX research to the high standards we expect. Our EMEA team is perfectly equipped to deliver research in South Africa.