Real & Practical Advice on Localising Your Product Design
Every Friday, I help designers, entrepreneurs and remote workers grow through mentoring and coaching sessions. And I love it. It’s rewarding to be able to help smart and ambitious people get to their goals.
And also, sometimes I get asked really great questions. Just like with last Friday.
“As someone who’s only designed for the North American market, how can I design for other markets? Localising design seems confusing and daunting.”
It didn’t seem like I was the first person she had asked. “Let me guess, has everyone told you to ‘just go do some user research’?”
User research is rarely the wrong answer, but…
I understand why “user research” was the answer she had gotten most often. Because it isn’t incorrect. It’s correct advice, but it was hardly useful.
If you point someone in the general direction of what they’re looking for, you’re not wrong, but you’re also not very helpful.
What she needed was advice on the most strategic approach to user research.
McDonald’s sells a lot of fries in a lot of countries.
To explain why I instantly understood the answer she needed, I’ll first tell you why I’m familiar with localisation.
My business Melewi is a fully-remote product UX UI design studio. In the last 7 years, we’ve worked with companies in 50+ countries — including McDonald’s in Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa.
Besides McDonald’s, we’ve also designed for the USA, Kenya, Myanmar, France, Dubai, Japan, China, and many more. All without having stepped foot in these wildly different markets.
This means we’ve done a lot, A LOT of localisation while remote. Everything I’ve learned about localisation has been through years of trial-and-error in very practical, real-world settings.
While there are many ways to localise, here are 4 steps I’d recommend if you’re starting out:
1. Know your homebase
Of course you know your homebase. But do you know about the ways in which you’re biased towards your homebase?
The first thing to recognise is that your way of seeing the world (and designing) fits a particular region or culture. There’s no crime in that.
But in order to localise, you first have to understand what’s local to you. Whether it’s your definition of good design, trustworthiness, or best practices.
If you know where you stand, only then will you be able to watch out for, and see what’s different somewhere else.
2. It isn’t about knowing the market, it’s about knowing the right questions to ask.
In a decade of running a fully-remote and very diverse team, as well as designing products around the world, the biggest lesson I’ve learned is: continuously search for what you DON’T know.
User research is about asking the right questions. Not working towards the “right” answer.
Localisation is exactly the same. You have to discover where you should be looking.
And I do this with a simple exercise…
3. Go grocery shopping
If you want to better understand a market, first start with the market’s ‘market’. By that, I mean supermarket.
Confused? Wondering to yourself “what does a supermarket have to do with user research? Melissa sounds a little bit crazy.” But hear me out.
To better understand your users, you first have to understand the setting in which they exist and live.
And you’ll be surprised with how much you can understand from the way which a population procures their groceries.
Here’s a side-by-side of 2 very different shopping experiences:
Supermarket experience 1:
- Show up, it’s air-conditioned (or heated), and it’s mostly quiet with some background noise of people talking
- Everything looks new, clean and well-organised
- You get a trolley and start putting things in. Maybe you eye up the organic chicken and wonder if you should get it, it’s only a few dollars more.
- You find everything you need, and head to the checkout area
- There are 2 options: checkout with a person, or automated self-checkouts
- You go automated, scan everything, pop them into your bag (hopefully not a single-use plastic bag), swipe your credit card, and leave
- You walk back to your car and drive home.
Supermarket experience 2:
- Show up, it’s outdoors by the road, and it’s noisy and chaotic
- You go from stall to stall looking at the produce, picking the ones you want, asking questions about the produce or its freshness
- You then pay the stall vendor on the spot with cash, before moving on to the next stall
- Everything is in plastic bags of some sort, and you put them all into your own bag or the trolley you brought
- With everything you’ve gotten, you leave, hopping on a bus home.
Doing this comparison brings up things to investigate. Some ideas from the above scenario you might think about could be:
- How trusting or suspicious is a market of the unknown?
- How highly does social proof rank? And how do people access them?
- What might they expect from customer support?
- What are the common / accepted methods of payment?
- How much tech is the comfortable norm?
4. Now ask pedantic questions
Now THIS is the part I don’t need to tell user researchers about. All I will say is: question all your assumptions. And ask seemingly pedantic questions about behaviours.
Just because “google it” is a term you’re familiar with, doesn’t mean someone in Myanmar even knows it exists.
Behaviours, norms, habits and cultural views can differ so wildly. At some point, you will discover things that really surprise you. But only if you ask the right questions.
Good luck!
About me:
Hi, I’m Melissa Ng 👋🏻 I’m the founder of product UX UI design studio Melewi and mental health startup Bravely.
Want valuable UX feedback for your app or product from an experienced team trusted by startups and corporations around the world? Talk to me and I’ll happily give you a free 30-min consult!
