International contrasts in web design

3 mrt 2010

787 viewsrating: rating: 0 of 5

comments: 0

International websites often contrast sharply from country to country. For example, Youku.com, the Chinese version of YouTube, contains as many as 19 main navigation items and six tabs. The Dutch version has six navigation items and no tabs. The contrasts in web design are not coincidental. The sites respond to the specific customs and cultural backgrounds of their visitors. This article describes the most important considerations when designing websites for different countries.

We are becoming increasingly familiar with the similarities and differences in site visitors’ behaviour from different parts of the world. These cultural differences are often pivotal to a website’s effectiveness. In this article, I will discuss six elements to bear in mind when designing websites for difference countries or regions:

Language
Symbols
Use of colour
Local designations
Online buying behaviour
Navigation and usability

1. Language

Of course, the most obvious difference between sites from different countries is language. The same content will have varying lengths in different languages. For example, the number of characters in a translation from English into French or German usually increases by 30-50%. This means that you will have to create at least twice the amount of space in your design.

Varying text lengths can have major consequences for the main navigation in particular. The Polish phrase ‘STRONA GŁÓWNA’, for example, has more than three times the characters than ‘HOME’ does in English. Chinese and Japanese, on the other hand, are much shorter and require a unique typographical adaptation.

In addition to the language itself, you also have to take the tone of voice into account. The easy-going, informal tone used to address visitors on American sites is less appreciated in the Far East. In Japan, it’s better to greet users with their surname. Tone of voice can be a sensitive issue within a single linguistic region as well. Addressing visitors with a familiar pronoun, which is common in the Netherlands, is much less appreciated by our southern neighbours.

2. Symbols

Some web designers attempt to solve the language problem by using symbols. Not all symbols are universally recognized though. The standard shopping cart used in the Netherlands and the United States may even confuse an Englishman, who is much more familiar with the shopping basket.

Illustrations can’t be indiscriminately copied from one country to another either. In England, it’s quite normal to use an illustration of a table to indicate a table. This is because in English the word can denote both a piece of furniture and a graph. In German, however the words tisch (furniture) and tabelle (graph) are so different, that no German could make sense of this.

Symbols don’t mean the same thing everywhere

3. Use of colour

The use of colour in a web design often has a powerful impact because it is more powerful at evoking emotions than words or symbols. However, colours may evoke sharply contrasting or even opposite associations in people from different countries. For example, red stands for passion and love in the West, whereas it is the colour of mourning in South Africa. The following overview is a frequently used aid for designing websites in different countries.

Symbolic values of colours worldwide

Red

China Success, celebration

India Purity

South Africa Colour of mourning

Russia Communism

Far East Worn by brides

West Danger, love, passion, stop, wrong

Orange

Ireland Religion (Protestant)

The Netherlands Royal house, football, sports

West Creativity, autumn, Halloween (with black)

Yellow

China Nutritious

Egypt Colour of mourning

Japan Guts, courage

India Merchants

West Hope, danger, cowardice

Green

China A green hat worn by a man indicates his wife has been cheating on him

India Islam

Ireland National symbol

West Spring, youth, organic, good, Christmas (with red)

Blue

Iran Colour of heaven and spirituality

West Depression, sadness, conservatism

Purple

Thailand Colour of mourning (widows)

West Royal house

White

Far East Funerals

West Marriage, investors, good, hospitals, doctors, peace

Black

China Colour for boys

West Funerals, death, Halloween (with orange), underworld, rebellion

Source: www.about.com

Also keep in mind that colours are also associated with political parties all over the world (see, for example: Wikipedia Political Colour).

4. Local designations

Similar to the use of colour, it is important to avoid ambiguity when designating local times, units of measurement, dates (e.g. mm-dd-yy or yy-mm-dd), seasons and currencies. Therefore, always write a date out in full (5 Jan 2010 instead of 05-01-10) in order to avoid confusion. The automatic conversions of currencies and units of weight and measurement are also essential. Even if a website is only being designed for a local market, it is important to avoid any potential ambiguity with the different units used.

5. Online buying behaviour

It is important for e-commerce websites to bear in mind local differences in online buying behaviour. For example, not every country uses credit cards or provides services like iDeal. Germans prefer to pay by means of a ‘Bankeinzug’, or direct debit. Africans and Chinese like to bargain. The use of search machines differs per country as well. For example, in China a high listing in Baidu is much more important than a high page ranking in Google. So inform yourself well about local buying and surfing customs before you start optimizing your website.

6. Navigation and usability

Although Americans and Europeans respond differently to languages, symbols and visual designs, that is less the case when it comes to website navigation and usability. American usability guidelines often apply just as readily in Europe and vice versa. This is totally different for countries that have a different writing direction and countries with a non-Western culture.

Research conducted by Usability by Design indicates that simply converting websites with a left-to-right script to a right-to-left script results in visibility problems. Users simply cannot see the various options anymore due to their position on the site, and therefore they are not given any further attention.

The biggest contrast in navigation is found in Asia. Whereas we are used to an orderly layout and a limited number of choices on a page, the custom in Asia is to place as much as possible on a page. Just like shopping streets in Hong Kong or Beijing, the homepages of the top twenty Chinese websites are filled with as many symbols, tabs and flashing banners as possible.

Chinese version of the Sina.com news portal

American version of Sina.com

A random homepage in Asia is also longer than its European or American counterpart. In order to get a good listing, Asian websites have to immediately show that they contain a substantial amount of content. This explains, for example, why the much busier Yahoo! does far better in China, Japan and Korea than the more restrained Google.com.

Length of Yahoo homepages in different countries. Source: cxpartners

Conclusion

The cultural background of site visitors is a key determining factor for the way in which they experience a website. When designing websites for different countries, it’s essential to take into account matters such as tone of voice, symbols and the symbolism underlying the use of colour. It’s equally important when designing non-Western websites that the navigation and usability are geared towards a specific target group.

To avoid falling into the above-mentioned traps, it is wise to employ some kind of local expertise. It is also recommended to involve local users in the design and test phases, by conducting remote user research, for example.