Diffrences in Web Site Design & Usability By Country/Region
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- jpaw61
The non-profit company I am working for is going to go international. We certify health professionals and are going to commit to doing it on a world-wide basis from now on.
In a meeting with the communications manager today, she wants me to research diffrent trends in web site design by country. Now, I countered with the view that the conventions of how a web site is designed does not change by country, that it is a world-wide medium so every country uses the same conventions. (Usability wise.)
Now I know design & color wise there will be drastic diffrences between web sites here in the States versus a site designed in India, Japan, or Russia. But how about usability wise, is there something being done in other areas of the world that differ drastically from what I am used to seeing? I can't find any examples after searching.
To sum up the above topic: I am trying to disprove my theory that web site usability conventions are a global standard.
Do you guys have any help/ideas on this?
- akrokdesign0
hire an art director, might be good.
- mikotondria30
Extrapolate that all usability principles are culturally and linguistically independent by seeing that Mercedes cars are as popular in the suburbs of Nairobi as they are in Compton or Compton Abbas..
- Pupsipu0
well lots of popular Russian websites have insanely shitty usability. They're from Web 1.0 land with Web 2.0 functionality. Maybe the people who made them don't care because there was no foreign language support in English social networks, so they just slapped stuff together.
- nocomply0
That's a very interesting topic.
I think that in an ideal world usability would be the same across the board, but like it's been mentioned a lot of international sites are archaic or just plain don't care about usability.
I think that's probably because the culture in other countries isn't as demanding for top-notch usability, but that's just a guess.
You might want to look into the issue of language support and see what international sites are doing in that area (ie - making site website accessible in japanese AND english). How to they integrate content in multiple languages, etc...
- jpaw610
So if we are going to retool our website for international use should we try to "Dumb Down" the navigation to web 1.0 standards? Or do we have faith in the user to be able to navigate our content even though they may be used to a lesser standard. Along the lines of mikotondria3 wrote above:
"Extrapolate that all usability principles are culturally and linguistically independent by seeing that Mercedes cars are as popular in the suburbs of Nairobi as they are in Compton or Compton Abbas.. "
- jevad0
Very interesting topic.
What you will find in a country like Japan, for example, is that people are so used to being bombarded with HUGE visuals all day long. As a consequence of this - websites made in Japan for a local audience are usually made with minimal user interaction in mind - because they want the website to do all the work for them as they is what they are conditioned for. BIG images, LOTS of flash and auto-interactive stuff.
- jpaw610
Yeah, I have been seeing that, I have been looking into Chineese & Japaneese web sites and they are overwhelming.
I have also been looking at interanational non-profit web sites. There is one in particular that I have come across that does something similar to what we do.
http://www.cert-int.com/main.htm…
And with the exception of their flash intro, our site is similar to that too, just a mess of links. Main navigation on top, sub-navigation on the right and then footer navigation that mirrors the main navigation on the bottom.
Would people in say, Japan or Africa have a hard time adjusting to the conventions that are acceptable in web navigation today? Are user's in diffrent areas of the world ok with scrolling up and down a page to find their information, like we have become accustomed to with web 2.0?