🌎 Designing Cross-Cultural And Multi-Lingual UX. Guidelines on how to stress test our designs, how to define a localization strategy and how to deal with currencies, dates, word order, pluralization, colors and gender pronouns.

⦿ Translation: “We adapt our message to resonate in other markets”.
⦿ Localization: “We adapt user experience to local expectations”.
⦿ Internationalization: “We adapt our codebase to work in other markets”.

✅ English-language users make up about 26% of users.
✅ Top written languages: Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese.
✅ Most users prefer content in their native language(s).
✅ French texts are on average 20% longer than English ones.
✅ Japanese texts are on average 30–60% shorter.

🚫 Flags aren’t languages: avoid them for language selection.
🚫 Language direction ≠ design direction (“F” vs. Zig-Zag pattern).
🚫 Not everybody has first/middle names: “Full name” is better.

✅ Always reserve at least 30% room for longer translations.
✅ Stress test your UI for translation with pseudolocalization.
✅ Plan for line wrap, truncation, very short and very long labels.
✅ Adjust numbers, dates, times, formats, units, addresses.
✅ Adjust currency, spelling, input masks, placeholders.
✅ Always conduct UX research with local users.

When localizing an interface, we need to work beyond translation. We need to be respectful of cultural differences. E.g. in Arabic we would often need to increase the spacing between lines. For Chinese market, we need to increase the density of information. German sites require a vast amount of detail to communicate that a topic is well-thought-out. 

Stress test your design. Avoid assumptions. Work with local content designers. Spend time in the country to better understand the market. Have local help on the ground. And test repeatedly with local users as an ongoing part of the design process.

You’ll be surprised by some findings, but you’ll also learn to adapt and scale to be effective — whatever market is going to come up next.

Useful resources:

UX Design Across Different Cultures, by Jenny Shen
https://lnkd.in/eNiyVqiH

UX Localization Handbook, by Phrase
https://lnkd.in/eKN7usSA

A Complete Guide To UX Localization, by Michal Kessel Shitrit 🎗️
https://lnkd.in/eaQJt-bU

Designing Multi-Lingual UX, by Vitaly Friedman
https://lnkd.in/eR3GnwXQ

Flags Are Not Languages, by James Offer
https://lnkd.in/eaySNFGa

IBM Globalization Checklists
https://lnkd.in/ewNzysqv

Books:

⦿ Cross-Cultural Design (https://lnkd.in/e8KswErf) by Senongo Akpem
⦿ The Culture Map (https://lnkd.in/edfyMqhN) by Erin Meyer
⦿ UX Writing & Microcopy (https://lnkd.in/e_ZFu374) by Kinneret Yifrah

Copied from: Vitaly Friedman