Imagine that six blind Indians encounter regularly an elephant. By coincidence, they always stand at the same place besides this huge mammal. Because they are lacking the overall view, each of them is developing his personal idea of this giant. If you tell the Indians that it is an elephant, they respectively imagine a fan, a snake, a spear, a trunk of a tree, a wall or a rope. Independently of their future conception of an elephant, they will always remember their first mental picture. That is the aftereffect of the first impression, the native language effect.

What crosses one’s mind when considering a telephone? A hand crank? A rotary dial? Push buttons? A touch screen? Depending on your first experiences with telephones, you might remember one of the previous alternatives.  According to this, a cordless telephone could be self-evident or not for you.

Remember the clash of cultures between the user groups of Apple and Microsoft. The other system will always appear to be strange, not ergonomic and not intuitive. Despite al this, no matter what system you are using, you have to know the context sensitive commands, in order to be able to operate the system.

It is always the first contact with something that will stick in somebodies mind. The evaluation of new things is affected by it in the long run. For this reason, this aspect should always be part of the implementation of novelties.

Bottom line: It is an advantage to consider the native language effect in the designing of your businesses and deliverables. Thus, it will be easier for the involved people to assume and to use new things.