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The web has no borders. And yet, most of us have a site audience persona in mind that fits our cultural background when designing websites. Click To Tweet The fact alone that most websites are consumed in English doesn’t necessarily mean that all of your site visitors understand your cultural clues, share your color choices, or find themselves in the images and data you upload. Cross-cultural design best practices underline that your site can be viewed and understood across cultures and that it speaks to a diverse audience. Cross-cultural design doesn’t mean to simply translate your website’s content to the language of your localized target audience, but it refers to a clear content-strategy and design approach that makes fundamental changes to the way you present yourself, your business or your organization online to be relevant to a cross-cultural, international audience. Click to enlargeCross-cultural design refers to your content (tone of voice, symbolism, idiosyncrasies, slang) as well as your design choices (colors, typography, emojis, layout, interface functionalities, visuals). The more you try to align your content and design to the cultural background, race, gender, ethnicity, age, or religion of your users and their expectations, the more effective your website will be to convert them to clients, customers, or donors. And your site will be more useful, engaging and credible. You can’t be everything to all your site visitors, however. Find common, neutral ground and, at the very least, try not to offend anyone. That is best done when you focus on human-centered design. Cultures and societal mores shift; you don’t want to be caught in implicit biases, assumptions, and stereotypes. Your site should speak to real people, wherever they are. That’s easier said than done. Here are a few examples of cross-cultural diversities that could impact your website’s reach:
So, what are the main points every web designer and content creator should remember when creating cross-cultural websites? If you have a defined audience in mind, face cultural restraints, or design a foreign-language website (aka localization) that tells a story that you want to resonate, be curious. Start by researching as much as you can: search for images of your target audience’s country and its people, listen to their stories, hear their language, read about their literature, their art, their culture and their traditions. Browse local magazines and other print media and visit websites in the local language to get a feel for their design preferences. Learn on which devices they mostly access the web and talk to them about technical challenges (i.e. internet access, internet speed). However, if you need an English-language website that reaches a cross-cultural global, diverse audience, and I believe all websites should be designed as such (aka internationalization): Design your site by stripping it of any culture-specific attributes. Here are some best practices to follow. Click to enlargeImages
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“The role of our interfaces is to mediate culture, to help us negotiate the intricacies of human communications,” writes Senongo Akpem in his book Cross-Cultural Design (published by A Book Apart in 2020). And he concludes, “Unless web practitioners build flexible, culturally responsive systems for all of us to use, many humans will never be able to participate fully in the promise and astonishing complexity of the web […] and let [their] cultural uniqueness shine through”. More on the topic: The Complete Guide to Cross-Cultural Design(Toptal) Cross-Cultural Design: 4 Ways to Get Started(dribble) Cross-Cultural Design (Senongo Akpem, A List Apart) Cross-Cultural Interface Design(Stefano Malachi) Intercultural Training (Berlitz)
Newsletter SignupI’ll be in your inbox periodically with actionable content + design tips and tricks, checklists and tools that you can apply immediately. I’ll share with you links to relevant blog posts (mine and curated recommended must reads) and other engaging content that will help you amplify your message and find the right site design. Copyright © Tekla Szymanski Content + Design LLC. All rights reserved. Please share/quote with attribution.Which of the following graphics would be best suited to showing the stages of a procedure or a process checklist drawing organization chart flowchart?Flow Chart
Show the sequence of steps in a process or procedure.
What is the purpose of providing front matter in a report?The front matter is the "envelope" of your document. The elements that make up the front matter introduce the reader to the body of your document. They help the reader understand a document's who, what, why, where, and how--the author, problem, argument, organization, and method.
What is an advantage of creating a document collaboratively in a shared workspace rather than working collaboratively on a document via email?What is an advantage of collaboratively creating a document in a shared document workspace rather than via email? A shared document workspace will create an archive of all the changes made by all team members. It is important to behave ethically when you use social media at work.
What type of visual shows the relative sizes of parts that make up a whole?Pie chart
A pie chart presents the different parts of a whole. It looks like a circle divided into many pieces, much like a pie cut into slices. The pieces are different sizes based on how much of the whole they represent. Each piece usually has a label to represent its value compared to the whole.
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