Can a Single Nokia Website Meet the Needs of Worldwide Users?

Last Wednesday I attended a wonderful presentation of a case study that chronicled how Nokia moved away from having many separate websites for their Nseries products and consolidated them into one centralized site. Two years ago, Nokia hired the consulting firms R/GA and Sachs Insights to develop the creative approach for a new consolidated site that addressed the global marketplace.

The presentation Global Research Case Study – Nokia Nseries Website Development was presented by NYC Usability Professionals Association. The team traveled around the globe to conduct concept and usability testing. The international cities included:

• New York
• London
• Berlin
• Shanghai
• Madrid
• Istanbul
• Moscow
• New Delhi
• Jakarta

I was very interested to hear what they had to say because over the last couple of years I have gotten away from designing primarily for a global audience. During my five and a half years with IBM, the needs of the global marketplace influenced every decision I made. I designed layouts that accommodated German translations that were a third longer, focused on search engine optimization for Japanese characters, and architected forms that accounted for bidirectional languages like Arabic. But now that I work at Barnes & Noble.com, where our customer base is predominantly American, I was excited to peer over the wall to see what, if anything, had changed in the international web space.

Strong Initial Assumptions about Target Audiences

Typically the first phase of a project like this is a study in ethnography where designers identify specific user characteristics and needs of the various cultural groups. I was immediately struck by the basic assumptions the design team were asked to take at face value. They too were somewhat skeptical at first but went along with the client’s requests. They ended up revisiting both assumptions post launch, but they were probably essential to launch something in a timely manner and to gain consistency across countries’ varying versions of the Nseries site.

Initial Assumption #1: The Site Can Be English Only

The designers were to assume that their users were English speaking, and therefore the site would be English only, with the exception of Chinese. In my past experience and all the best practices I’ve followed, translation to each language is essential, so I was fascinated to see how worldwide customers would react.

Initial Assumption #2: One Site Fits All

The next thing they were asked to assume was that one site could meet the needs of all users, and therefore localization of content was not necessary. As with translation, localization of content is also seen as necessary in best practices.

How Assumptions Changed Post Launch

The site did initially launch as English only (except in China, as was always the plan). But since then they have translated the site into several languages. This is due to several reasons:

• Even though end users can speak English at some level, they are almost always more comfortable in their native language.
• While some countries, especially Asian or developing countries, like to display their English speaking abilities, other countries prefer to maintain their native tongue for reasons of national pride. This is especially true in some European counties.

Even within the English language words need to be localized for different audiences. Have a dinner party with a mix of Americans, Brits, and Aussies and you’ll quickly see the differences in word choice. As a more specific example for this project, Germans, even when speaking English, call phones or handheld computers “handies”, so the English terminology didn’t work for them. (Actually, Americans are one of the few user groups who refer to handheld computers as “phones”.)

The site did launch as a single version, where all audiences around the world saw the same content. However, over time they slowly modified the page templates to give local regions control over some areas on the page. This space was to promote local events or products that might be better suited for that area.

Ultimately these deviations in language and content between regions led to a more complicated maintenance process, but the company obviously saw it as a worthwhile tradeoff after gauging regional reactions.

Key Takeaways

The group of interaction and visual designers concluded the presentation with a list of key points they learned from this experience. Hopefully these tips can help you navigate future global projects:

• Don’t assume anything. Assumptions do not always carry from one culture to the next, so ask lots of questions.
• Rehearse moderators and translators and get copies of their writing samples ahead of time.
• Plan realistic timelines, keeping in mind that start times can be more flexible in some cultures.
• Be specific and realistic about whom to recruit, knowing that the criteria might need to vary between countries.
• Have an agile development process for your prototype so you can react and make tweaks as necessary between user sessions.
• Start in your local country. Iron out as many bugs as possible in the overall design before you take the prototype on the road.

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