While broken buttons, mistranslations, and culturally insensitive photos are obvious deal-breakers for visitors in any culture, other less obvious choices can have a dramatic impact on how engaging and trustworthy your site appears to international visitors. A lot of this depends on cultural context, high and low.
Broadly speaking, low-context cultures communicate predominantly through explicit statements in text and speech while high-context communication involves implying a message through that which is not uttered.
Japan, China, and many Arab countries are good examples of predominantly high-context cultures. German-speaking, Scandinavian, and North American countries tend toward low-context culture. (If you’re reading this, it means you probably have a low-context bias!)
In terms of web usability, the following design tendencies are often common in high-context cultures:
- High use of animation, especially in connection with images of moving people
- Images promote values of a collectivist society
- Featured images depict products and merchandise in use by individuals
- Links promote an exploratory approach to website navigation; process oriented
- Many sidebars and menus, with links opening in new browser windows
(From: Würtz, E. (2005). A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Websites from High-Context Cultures and Low-Context Cultures. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1), article 13.)
Let’s take a look at two high-context designs that have been very successful for franchise brands expanding overseas. First up, McDonald’s Thailand website:
Thailand’s portal for McDonald’s might seem like a hot mess compared to the relatively toned-down U.S. version, but it’s a paragon of high-context design elements. Embedded video players, four different product boxes, community news, and main navigation hidden in a pull-down tab, this is a process-oriented, media-rich example of high-context localization.
Next, Indonesia’s launch of 7-Eleven:
7-Eleven in Indonesia features other high-context design elements at play, notably the images of products in use by people, rather than emphasis on a “brand lifestyle.” The center “slider” rotates through a gallery of products and promotions. Additionally, 7-Eleven chose to integrate their streaming Twitter feed directly on the home page. (For a closer look at 7-Eleven’s successful franchise expansion in Indonesia, be sure to check out our recent article here.)
The upshot? A low-context bias for less-cluttered, static, goal-oriented design with simplified navigational choices might be a major factor holding back the impact your brand has online in high-context markets. Translate websites with cultural context in mind.
