Six Points in Cross-Cultural Web Design

When an English site is going to develop a Chinese or whatever language site, it is not as easy as to translate the English context into Chinese only. Web design usually differs when the culture switches. Six points are supposed to be necessary and important for web designer’s conception – content, keyword, color, image, layout and connections.

1. Let the content say something!

Content is King for search engine optimization. High-quality content can bring targeted traffic, turn traffic into loyal users and help achieve your goal. While eighty percent of Internet users speak non-English language, chances are either you need special translation work or that people will use Google Translator. Well-written content is a great plus to translators.

Some web agencies provide translation services, like DAVYIN. We have native English, French and Chinese employees here. Slang,

idioms and abbreviations could be easily handled. And because they have years of experience in this, the translation is sure to be accurate.

2. Don't forget the keywords.

If you do not care improving local performance and adding exposure to local market, leave the keywords alone. Or keywords must not be forgotten.

I would even suggest not using machine translation. Do find a professional who speaks the targeting language and fully understands what you say. He or she knows better than machines how to express the exact meaning.

3. Have you noticed colors?

Color tells different between cultures. Red tends to give an energetic first impression to Europeans, while it stands for purity to Indians and celebration and power to Chinese. Regarding web design, a lot of western fashion sites like using black extensively. This can be hardly seen at Chinese sites since pure black relates to death and burden in Chinese culture.

Web designers thus have to learn where the target audience is from and see if the color scheme is likely to resonate as you wish.

4. Use image correctly.

A sexy woman in VOGUE cover may be considered offensive by Chinese people.

And if VOGUE China copies from VOGUE UK, having a national-famous Irish singer as the cover girl, guess how many copies can be sold out?

Just take care of images.

5. Layout matters.

Technically, well-formed CSS and UTF-8 character encoding can ease language switching.

Have a look at spaces. Chinese paragraph often takes up less space than the English version. Meanwhile three-column layout is more popular among Chinese websites than two-column ones.

Horizontal navigation bar across has also been employed to avoid inconveniences for right-to-left readers.

6. Same network connection?No.

Some countries have very fast broadband internet access while some do not. So background music, Flash and large-size graphics may not apply to all. While these items are attractive to visitors, designers just need to discuss with their clients and balance between access and patience.

Please your clients on the Internet first, and you could possibly get returned. Just start by respecting their cultures and implementing web design distinctions!