Standardization vs. Localization

A couple of weeks ago, while doing some cross-cultural research on websites, I stumbled onto several McDonald's’ websites in different countries. It was particularly striking that each of the sites was radically different, not just in terms of text and translation, but from the kind of images used, typography selected, color palettes designed, layouts chosen, to even the favicons!

As I looked at more examples from different countries, it appeared that the European websites were more similar visually when compared to the set of Asian websites. While I debated whether it was a good design strategy or stereotyping of cultures, it was clear that McDonald's felt it was important.

On the one hand, the user interface design process focuses wholly on the user and his context — his needs, wants, expectations and preferences — and on the other hand, global businesses want to cater to and engage with consumers across the world and consider demographic diversity which, while possible, can get very complicated.

Imagine your favorite e-commerce website being visited by users from different parts of the world, assuming that language translation is successful; are there elements of it that might make it difficult for them to navigate through the site? Are there metaphors that they simply would not understand? How about mental models; do users from different cultures look for different data to make decisions? There are several other questions that illustrate the depth of this problem. But the bottom line is to help make communication effective between a global business and a local user. It simply isn’t enough to use a standardized website that translates the text and utilizes the same images, layout and color of the parent site (Becker and Crespo, 2001). For instance, consider the OK gesture; in most English-speaking countries, it is a sign of everything working well, but in several European countries the same gesture means “zero” or “worthless.”

The debate around standardization versus localization in website design continues to be a bone of contention. While some argue that due to the nature of the internet, cultural distance will minimize and we will see a homogeneous online culture. Many other research studies show that consumers prefer to visit and interact with sites that are made specifically for them and which contribute to online customer trust, satisfaction and e-loyalty (Cyr, 2004). Even so, the goal of culturally sensitive usability is to understand different cultural perspectives holistically with the user-centered design approach, and to avoid stereotyping cultures or making tacit assumptions about politically correct design.

Research on cultural differences

Much research around cultural differences has been published. Few of these works are well known, with particular focus on Fons Trompenaars and Geert Hofstede’s work.

Trompenaars, a prolific Dutch researcher in the field of cross-cultural communication, with Hampden-Turner, studied how people from different cultures solve problems. Hofstede, an influential Dutch cultural anthropologist and psychologist, conducted extensive and exhaustive interviews with IBM employees in 53 countries in the early 1970s, with over 100,000 data points. Both Trompenaars and Hofstede discovered that there were significant differences among cultures in different countries. Both went on to define culture as a set of shared characteristics such as thoughts, values and behaviors. Based on their research, Trompenaars and Hofstede formulated different theories on cultural dimensions, which defined sharp lines of distinctions along which cultures differ.

Given the global platform of the Internet where social experiences are shared and communal interaction occurs, it becomes critical for web and web-based application design to consider culturally diverse user groups. While some fundamental principles of usability, such as simplicity and consistency, are elemental, in such situations there are certain design characteristics that need to be reflected upon.

According to Cyr (2004), there are critical characteristics of design that need attention in a cultural context:

• Language, which is a distinctive aspect of different cultures, which when moved to the online domain presents its own challenges of quality of translation, representation and stylistic elements.
• Layout that serves as a communication bridge between the user and the system, it involves placement of banners, menu items, orientation, amongst others.
• Symbols refer to “metaphors” denoting actions for the user and vary from culture to culture. They may be icons used for currencies, locations, and other navigational elements.
• Content or structure, referring information or features that the site offers and its organization.
  Navigation that is easy to use and facilitates access to information.
• Multimedia, including video, animation, images and sound.
• Color – where color semiotics varies across cultures and can impact user expectations.

Hofstede’s Five Dimensions

The concept of culturally sensitive design includes all these characteristics as well as the emotions, behaviors and ways of thinking of the individuals also considered as users (Eristi, 2009). As per Eristi, Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory seems to be effective in the culturalization process of appeal in web design.

According to Hofstede (1980), world cultures vary across certain consistent and fundamental values. These 5 dimensions are:

• Power distance
• Collectivism vs. individualism
• Femininity vs. masculinity
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Long vs. short-term orientation

Marcus and Gould (2000) make several inferences from Hofstede’s theory and how it can be adapted to cultural differences. Scientists have continued to build upon their work, creating many ‘best’ practices for cross-cultural interface design.

Let’s take a very brief look at each of Hofstede’s dimensions and preliminary implications for user-interface and web design to make design characteristics culturally relevant:

Individualism vs. Collectivism (IDV)

This refers to the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups. Individualistic societies emphasize personal achievements and individual rights. Collectivist societies emphasize group affiliations and loyalty.

Implications:
In the same paper, Marcus and Gould (2000) believe that motivation is based on personal achievement in individualistic cultures, while collectivist societies value harmony and consensus to move forward.

• Content based on materialism and consumerism will work well in individualistic cultures, and those that represent community and harmony will work better in collectivist societies.
• Language, sound, videos and metaphors that emphasize individual successes will be preferred in high IDV countries; with larger successes and goals will matter more in low in IDV cultures.
• Individualistic countries will value importance given to the youth, whereas social actors of experience and wise leaders will be preferred in collectivist cultures.
• Sites that offer extrinsic rewards tend to be valued by cultures that are highly individualistic.

With a score of 76 on the IDV index, Italy is a very individualistic culture. Personal achievement and a sense of self are important and this is highlighted in the Italian version of Match.com. Only one image is used and portrays a young couple emphasizing the importance of youth.

Venezuela has a score of 12, and is among the most collectivist societies in the world. There is a high preference for belonging to a larger group and people are expected to be virtuous and act for the greater good. In the Venezuelan site for Match.com, this is reflected clearly with the number of people both young and middle-aged shown in the background. They represent community and harmony which is important to collectivist societies.

Uncertainty Avoidance (UA)

This refers to the degree of tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity. High uncertainty avoidance cultures are more emotional, and control changes with rules, laws and regulations. Low uncertainty avoidance cultures are more pragmatic, and have as few rules as possible.

Implications:
Cultures with high uncertainty avoidance would emphasize simplicity, clear metaphors, limited choices and restricted amounts of data, according to Marcus and Gould (2000).

• Content and visuals that are clear and concretely associated with lives of individuals will be preferred greatly by high UA cultures. More general and symbolic messages with less detail will be valued by low UA cultures.
• Redundant cues in color and typography that increase ambiguity are shunned by cultures with a high uncertainty avoidance index. They prefer very clean and distinct choices.

With a score of 112, Germany is one of the countries that fall high on uncertainty avoidance. According to Hofstede, given their philosophical heritage, they have a strong preference for deductive rather than inductive reasoning. A systematic overview needs to be given in order to proceed. The T-Mobile site provides plenty of information; visuals clearly indicate the message, and typography and colors cues are not redundant and help reduce ambiguity.

Singapore has a score of 8 on the UA index meaning that people maintain decorum and follow rules but not because of the need for a structure but because they fall high on the power distance index. Messages on the T-mobile site are very clinical. The information architecture is very shallow, not dense with detail. Several links are repeated many times within the homepage.

Conclusions