{"id":17467,"date":"2023-03-10T10:16:34","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T10:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uxmag.com\/?p=17467"},"modified":"2023-03-10T10:16:36","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T10:16:36","slug":"the-power-of-localization-in-user-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uxmag.com\/articles\/the-power-of-localization-in-user-experience","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Localization in User Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How many users around the world use your products? Are they all speaking the same language? Which countries are they from? Have you ever wondered whether people from different cultures and languages will be able to understand your products? These are common questions for global companies that use a process called localization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is localization?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Localization means adapting any product to a specific country or region. Localization, therefore, is not just about translating content into different languages, it\u2019s also about considering a user\u2019s cultural context and how that might impact their experience of a product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s a real-life example: Did you know every country has its own keyboard? Because of differences in language and culture, not only is the order of the letters different, but also the placement of the functional buttons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"French
French and American keyboards showing different letter placement.
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wix is a company with more than 238 million users but only around 35% of them are English speakers. Because the majority come from non-English speaking countries, it\u2019s important to provide the most localized experience possible. Good localization builds trust with users which has long-term benefits for the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"English
English and non-English speaking Wix users.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Adapting the Wix onboarding experience to a country\u2019s culture<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

An example of successful localization can be found in the first stages of creating a new website on Wix. At this point, we ask the user a number of questions to adjust the site settings to their specific needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the way we address users can make a difference in their interactions with Wix. Germans, for example, are very reluctant to answer questions online, particularly more personal questions. We had to figure out the best way to get information from these users to put them at ease and help them optimize their sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, we turned the questions into tasks and decided to add a short sentence under each task to reassure the user as they complete the process to the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These changes resulted in a considerable increase in identified German users who got a personalized experience in the next steps. This clearly illustrates how localizing is more than simply translating: it is about adapting to a country\u2019s cultural and social norms and creating a tailored experience for specific users from a specific place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Comparison
Comparison of the first stages of Wix website creation in English and German.
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What does a tailored localization experience look like at Wix?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Adding localized domain endings
<\/strong>Our users can buy a custom domain from Wix, allowing them to improve their site\u2019s online presence. To effectively engage with their local audience, it\u2019s important for our users to have a local domain extension (for example domainame<\/em>.fr<\/em><\/strong> for France or domainame<\/em>.com.br<\/em><\/strong> for Brazil).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why we support many country domain extensions, and this year we added three more: .it<\/strong> for Italy, .ca<\/strong> for Canada, and .com.au<\/strong> for Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"CCTLDs
CCTLDs available at Wix.
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Localization of Wix pricing page for Japan and France
<\/strong>We conducted in-depth research on two of our focus markets \u2014 Japan and France \u2014 to see what improvements we could make to provide users with a better user experience and increase conversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Japanese market research was conducted by different teams within Wix including a team based locally in Japan. We reached the conclusion that to best serve the market according to its habits, we needed to make two major UX alignments:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, to align with the common typography hierarchy in Japan we switched the order of the title and subtitle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Change
Change of hierarchy: inversion of title and subtitle for the Japanese plans page.
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, since Japanese users prefer all information to be visible, we took any information that was hidden inside tooltips and added it under the name of the feature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Increased
Increased visibility on Japanese plans page: description of each feature added in a tooltip.
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In France, our goal was to gain the trust of local users using our pricing plans to communicate that the Wix platform is certified and trustworthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Afnic, the French internet domain registry association recommends Wix as a trusted platform for building websites, we created a banner promoting the reliability of Wix as a site platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our hope was that these additions would make Japanese and French users feel more confident in our services, and indeed we were pleased to see that these users selected Premium plans with a greater value for their business and website needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Banner
Banner promoting \u201cAfnic\u201d to French users strengthens trust in Wix.
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Enabling Boleto Bancario for Wix\u2019s Brazilian users
<\/strong>A final example of impactful localization can be seen in the payment options presented when purchasing a Premium plan. Users around the world are all familiar with their country\u2019s own local payment methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few years ago we gave Brazilian users the option to pay with Boleto Bancario, an offline payment method commonly used in Brazil. Introducing this option to our Brazilian users led to an increase in the number of users using Boleto Bancario for Wix products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Addition
Addition of Brazilian offline payment method Boleto Bancario.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How to promote localization in your own company<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n