by Charlie Fletcher
In today’s competitive digital landscape, expanding reach and targeting global audiences is vital. The more customers you can attract and convert, the greater success your business will have. According to a report by Common Sense Advisory, 56.2% of consumers said that the ability to obtain information in their own language is more important than price.
To do this, most companies focus on delivering exceptional customer service through user experience (UX) design, and while this is a crucial part of engaging customers, it’s often done with a fairly narrow target audience in mind.
If your business is just getting off its feet, it’s understandable that you might only have the time and resources to focus on a smaller audience. However, if you want to grow your business, expanding your reach to global audiences is a must.
The Role of Translation Services in UX Design
Translation services in UX play a crucial role in boosting customer experience. With digitalization happening rapidly, many businesses are expanding their reach across borders, but successfully requires more in-depth language and cultural understanding.
In other words, if you target a global audience, your content, such as your website, blogs, and social media ads, must be adapted to address cultural differences — primarily language barriers. UX localization is a type of strategy that seeks to create content which is more culturally relevant.
It’s important to understand that UX localization is more than simply translating textual content into different languages. It’s a strategic process that involves adapting entire use interfaces and experiences of digital products to match different linguistic AND cultural contexts, such as variances in regional preferences. This includes adapting design layouts, text, images, videos, and other UX or UI elements to make them more relatable to the intended audience.
Localization is not only for customer-facing platforms but also for internal tools, user guides, and software interfaces that may be used globally. This holistic approach ensures consistent user experience for all user types.
The Benefits of UX Localization
Localizing your UX strategy is not something to be seen as a luxury. UX localization is vital if you want to stay ahead of the competition and continue attracting new customers. To further drive the point, here are several benefits that come from enhancing UX with multilingual practices:
- Increases user engagement;
- Helps attract a more diverse audience;
- Boosts diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI);
- Improves accessibility;
- Improves customer retention rates;
- Boosts conversion rates.
Perhaps one of the most important benefits is that UX localization builds trust. When customers see a digital product or piece of content that feels more familiar and relatable, it nurtures trust with the brand — and customers are more likely to be loyal to brands they trust.
Localizing content also positively impacts SEO efforts, as search engines reward local, relevant content. Businesses often forget that SEO should be part of their localization strategy, ensuring visibility in target markets.
UX localization also addresses the accessibility of digital content, ensuring that users with disabilities from various cultural backgrounds can equally access content. This ties into the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which many global companies adhere to.
UX Localization Strategies for a Multilingual Website
Again, creating a localized digital experience for global audiences goes beyond translating content. It requires a well-thought-out strategy that involves a deep understanding of the differences in user behaviors, language, and cultural norms.
1. Thorough Planning
The first step should include extensive planning and strategizing. This approach means identifying target global audiences, prioritizing what content or digital products to include, and researching user preferences and cultural considerations. The key is to understand as much about your new target audiences as possible so you can plan for and create the right kind of content to meet those user’s needs and preferences. When planning UX localization, it is essential to map out the full user journey across various touchpoints. This helps in identifying key cultural differences at each stage.
When planning and creating multiple UX strategies to meet multiple different audience preferences, consider iteration planning. It is a process that breaks projects down into iterations, making it easier to understand each element than trying to see it as a whole picture.
This approach is particularly helpful when you have design teams and translators working together as it helps everyone understand what tasks they are responsible for and how they potentially tie in with someone else’s task. When you use iterations, setting expectations and staying in line with project goals is easier.
2. Consistent Design
Ensuring consistency across all design elements when making cultural and linguistic changes is crucial. Doing so creates a more seamless experience for users that ensures familiarity and ease of use.
Design must ensure consistency and cultural compatibility across color schemes, symbols, forms, icons, typography, layouts, and even navigation menus. Make sure all of these elements align when addressing a new audience, and you also want to ensure that the chosen elements are relevant to that audience. For example, an emoji or icon that is popular in one country could have a different meaning or preference in another country.
3. Translation Experts
Translators play a vital role in UX localization. While UX designers and marketers can undoubtedly do a lot of the research to understand global audiences, using a translation expert can ensure there are no mishaps, such as using language incorrectly or even using something in the content that ends up being offensive to another culture.
Translators can help ensure consistency across content and design elements, as well as the cultural context of the design, so it matches local nuances, idioms, and preferences. They can also work with UX designers to help customize interfaces and provide translations for any text or video content. Translators should be involved in linguistic testing to ensure that all localized content is accurate and culturally appropriate after integration into the UI.
Machine translation technologies, combined with human translators, can speed up the process while maintaining quality. Tools like CAT (Computer-Assisted Translation) can streamline collaboration between translators and UX designers.
4. User Feedback
Collecting and analyzing user feedback for multilingual design enhances organizational performance and is a vital part of any UX strategy, but it is essential when working with new audiences you are less familiar with.
For example, getting feedback directly from a user from the targeted area can tell you whether or not the design meets the nuances, preferred language, idioms, and other cultural preferences of that region. These insights play an important role in creating a successful multilingual UX design. Hotjar is an example of an online platform which you can use to obtain geotargeted feedback.
Crowdsourcing feedback from users in different regions can offer an affordable and effective way to gain valuable insights into UX localization efforts.
5. Testing
Finally, in addition to user feedback, it’s also important to conduct testing before your final product or design reaches your targeted global audience. Testing ensures your localized UX product is sound and will hopefully help you achieve your desired results.
There are several different types of testing methods you can carry out when implementing UX localization, such as usability testing, linguistic testing, functional testing, compatibility testing, and security testing.
A/B Testing and Cultural Acceptance Testing: Along with usability and linguistic testing, companies should consider A/B testing to compare localized versions of a product and cultural acceptance testing, which helps validate the cultural fit of the design and content.
Localization quality assurance (LQA): LQA is a process used in localization testing that focuses on verifying the linguistic, cultural, and functional quality of localized digital products. It ensures that localization has not disrupted usability or caused design bugs.
6. Research
UX research in global markets can be enhanced using tools like Google Trends and Semrush for language-specific search queries, or A/B testing for different user interface designs.
Conclusion
Integrating translation services into UX design is a powerful way to boost reach and improve customer experiences. When you personalize content for more diverse audiences by breaking down language barriers and embracing cultural differences, it not only helps you attract more customers but also gives you a competitive edge and can boost your brand reputation, which is key to driving success.
About the Author
Charlie Fletcher is an active writer and blogger with extensive experience in socio-political topics, education, health and wellness, business, HR & marketing, and lifestyle and family life. You can find out more on Charlie’s LinkedIn page.
