Picture this: you live in Japan and you’re planning a weekend getaway in the mountains. You download that new car rental app you’ve heard so much about from your American friends — and great, it’s in Japanese! That makes things easier.
But wait a second… pick-up times are in AM/PM format, and you can never remember if 12 PM is noon or midnight. When you try to enter your address, there’s no field for the prefecture! And the app insists on knowing which U.S. state issued your driver’s license…
You could contact support and sort it all out, but surely there’s another app that’s easier to use, right? That would be helpful. And that is UX localization.
What is UX localization and why is it different from UI localization?
UX localization is the process of designing an experience that truly feels local to the target audience, e.g. by adapting date and time formats, currencies, payment methods, navigation structures, available features and communication style to local expectations and preferences.
UI localization, on the other hand, is the practical implementation of these decisions within the user interface. It involves integrating translated texts and adjusting visual elements, like input fields and buttons, to ensure the UI is linguistically and culturally appropriate for the target market.
If UX localization is thinking, UI localization is doing.
Good to know 💡
While many think of UX and UI localization as either identical or completely separate, the truth lies somewhere in between:
UI localization is a part and a consequence of UX localization.
At the same time, without the UI, UX remains nothing more than an idea. As a result, the two things are deeply interconnected and need to be addressed jointly from the earliest stages of design.
Key UX elements that need localization
Localizing your app or website goes beyond simple translation. To truly resonate with your target audience, you must adapt every aspect of the user experience (UX) to accommodate local preferences and behaviors.
Here are some of the most important elements to consider when localizing the UX of your app or website:
Tone of voice and imagery
Different markets will expect different levels of formality. Take France: in certain contexts, using “tu” instead of “vous” is considered overly casual and even disrespectful. Markets like the US or Australia are comfortable with relaxed and playful tones, which might be frowned upon in Germany or Japan, where a more reserved approach is preferred.
To avoid the risk of offending or alienating your audience, define a clear approach and communicate it effectively to the translators, allowing them to accurately adapt the copy of your website to each market.
But it’s not all about text; imagery plays a big role too. Pictures showing skin contact or alcohol consumption may be inappropriate in some Middle Eastern countries, while depicting people wearing shoes indoors might make some Asian users uncomfortable.
Choosing culturally appropriate visuals is essential to make users feel welcome, respected and understood.
Payment methods
Your global customers will use different payment methods. While PayPal is widely used in Europe and the US, many other countries heavily rely on local payment options that you should research and integrate into your app or website before launch in any given region (like Pix in Brazil or AliPay in China).
Offering familiar and convenient payment methods reduces friction at checkout while building trust and customer loyalty. After all, if people can’t easily pay for your products or services, they might just not do it at all…
Reminder 🎗️
Don’t forget to localize the input fields in the payment process to match local address formats, phone number conventions and any other region-specific requirements!
Regional conventions
It’s the end of March and your flash sale ends on 04/03? A European customer might give up on it, thinking it’s already over…
Failing to adapt details like date and time formats, currencies and units of measurement to match regional expectations is bound to confuse and alienate your new customers, who should spend time engaging with your product instead of doing conversions.
But it doesn’t end there: adapting these elements often requires structural changes to the UI itself, like forms that must include or exclude certain fields, like in our rental car example.
In many Asian cultures, first and last names are written in a different order or are considered a single unit, so a single field makes more sense. In contrast, users from Spanish-speaking countries often have two last names, which implies the need for an extra input field.
Then there are the finer details: calendar formats varying by locale, dynamic selectors and adaptive labels that change based on units or formatting rules. These aren’t just cosmetic changes, they’re essential for building trust and usability on a global scale. Check out this article to learn more about how to translate dynamic content!
Navigation architecture
People in different regions organize and interpret information in different ways, and your navigation needs to reflect that.
Western users prefer minimalist, clean interfaces with clear paths and limited visual distractions. They tend to find them more trustworthy than dense, content-rich layouts that present a lot of information all at once, which are more appreciated and expected in countries like China and Korea. What might seem overwhelming and cluttered to one audience can actually feel efficient and informative to another one.
Then there’s text direction. Middle Eastern cultures use right-to-left navigation, which needs careful adjustment of the navigation elements to function properly.
Adapting the navigation architecture ensures the experience feels intuitive and familiar, which means different things for different people.
Uniquely local features
Did you know that paying by QR code is incredibly common in China? Or that Japanese people love points-based loyalty programs? Understanding and incorporating market-specific features unlocks valuable business opportunities that it would be unwise to ignore.
Customer support preferences also vary across regions. For example, some countries prioritize human interaction over automated chatbots, while others expect to receive assistance through specific channels, e.g. WhatsApp in Brazil.
Japanese consumers value thoroughness and accuracy when interacting with digital products. Highly detailed filtering options are not just appreciated — they’re expected, so it’s a good idea to allow users to filter products by specific criteria such as material, color, brands to include or exclude and precise keywords.
An interesting read 📖
Curious to know all the benefits of having a multilingual store for your e-commerce? Take a look at the linked article!
Cultural differences that affect the user experience
Localizing the user experience goes far beyond practical tasks like translating buttons and switching currencies: it’s about looking at culture from a much wider perspective.
Usability is important, sure, but it means different things in different regions. If you want to change the way your target audience feels about you and your product, you must first understand how they think and interact with the world around them, what they trust and how they make decisions.
Give them what they expect. If your UX doesn’t align with their cultural logic, you’ll cause nothing but confusion and alienation, as outlined in this report:
“Research has shown that culturally adapted website designs can allow users to perform their tasks more successfully and experience greater satisfaction with the interaction, whereas improperly handling cultural differences in websites can result in poor user experience.”
Did you know?⚡
eBay had to withdraw from the Japanese market after failing to account for cultural differences with the U.S., such as requiring risk-averse Japanese users to provide credit card information at signup, which led to high abandonment rates.
“Intuitiveness” is not a universal concept.
Japanese and German users, for instance, want their questions answered upfront, which results in pages richer in text and details. Meanwhile, Americans expect a faster, streamlined experience that will save them time.
Color symbolism can also affect the user experience in many ways. In Western cultures, the color red is usually associated with errors and warnings, while in China it’s a symbol of good fortune and positivity (used even to indicate rising stock prices!)
Chinese users also value social proof (such as reviews, popularity scores and endorsements) significantly more than other cultures, which is something to keep in mind while designing your user experience.
Even images and icons require careful localization: the thumbs-up gesture, widely understood as approval in most of the world, can be quite offensive in certain Middle Eastern cultures.
All these cultural nuances directly impact and influence the individual user experience of your target audience, shaping their relationship with your brand and determining the success of your business in the region.
Proper UX localization increases engagement and conversion rates while reducing bounce rates, like in Alconost’s case: after localizing their Korean website, they saw a 30% decrease in bounce rate and a sevenfold increase in key conversion events.
“Although localization requires investment, the outcomes are clear. Better engagement, more conversions, and a more robust worldwide presence have all resulted for us. Whether you’re starting small or have big plans, taking the time to localize carefully can make all the difference.”
Understanding and respecting cultural differences isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s essential to craft a user experience that feels natural and effortless. Meet your users where they are and they’ll reward you.
Steps to build a culturally aware UX
A proper localization of your user experience requires a significant investment of time and resources, one that will pay off through stronger user engagement, improved conversion and better retention, directly improving your business performance. Here’s how to approach UX localization effectively:
1. Conduct thorough market research 🌍🔍
Before anything else, you must decide which markets you want to enter and conduct in-depth market research about each one. What language(s) do they speak there and what’s their relationship with technology? Which factors influence their purchase decisions?
Study your most successful competitors in the region and interview the locals to directly answer some of your questions while learning about their preferences in terms of design and communication. Based on your findings, define exactly which elements of your UX need to be localized and how.
2. Design with flexibility in mind ⚖️✏️
Make things easier for you and your team by anticipating your UX localization requirements from the earliest stages of the design process.
Create flexible layouts capable of adapting to text expansion (the German version of your copy will be significantly longer than the English one!) and different writing directions (right-to-left or vertical).
Ensure that adjusting forms, text and images is as easy as possible, separating the content from the code so your team won’t have to redesign everything from scratch, wasting precious time and resources.
3. Optimize the shopping (and after-sales) experience 🛒🎧
You want to sell something? Make it easy for people to pay for your product.
Use the insights gathered through market research to optimize the checkout experience by supporting local payment methods, displaying prices in the local currency and specifying any additional charges that might apply, such as taxes and shipping costs (and times!)
Now that the sale is through, let’s not forget about the after-sales experience. Make sure to adjust to local preferences in this regard as well. An example? French consumers expect phone support from human agents, while Chinese people tend to favor fast, in-app chat support.
4. Collaborate with native speakers 🗣️💬
Translation is the main pillar of any localization strategy. Work with a team of native speakers who are aware of the regional quirks and cultural intricacies of your target region and they will guide you during the translation process.
Make sure to inform them of your choices regarding the tone of voice and overall style you want to use and be open to their feedback: they know the local landscape better than anyone!
5. Test everything, everywhere, all at once 📋✅
As with anything, testing is an essential part of success. Confirm that everything works properly in the localized version of your app or website, looking for broken layouts and misaligned images or strings of text.
Run tests in your target market, gathering feedback from locals on usability, cultural relevance and overall satisfaction. After launch, continue to closely monitor user behavior, conversion, bounce and retention rates and every other metric that can help you optimize your UX further.
Interested in the topic? Find out how to check the quality of localized content here.
Common UX localization mistakes to avoid
UX localization is a complex process that involves many people with different skills and responsibilities, where mistakes can happen. Here are some of the most common ones:
- Assuming translation = localization
It’s easy to assume that translating your content into the local language is enough to provide a satisfactory user experience, but you can’t stop at granting people access to your product: it has to feel theirs, which is why it’s essential to accommodate their needs and expectations in terms of dates, currencies, units of measurement, cultural references and tone of voice.
Users who aren’t wasting time on these details will be happier with your product and more willing to engage with it, moving down the purchase funnel. - Ignoring technical constraints
Different languages vary in length and structure. Interfaces designed for English may break or feel cramped when texts are translated into “longer” languages like German, Italian or Arabic, with overflowing or overlapping text.
Failing to account for text expansion, right-to-left layouts or script-specific quirks can result in broken UIs and unreadable content. And don’t forget to optimize for the most commonly used OS in your target region!
An interesting read 📖
Find out about the 7 most common issues faced by designers in localization and how to solve them.
- Using inappropriate imagery
Colors, icons, gestures and images can carry vastly different meanings in different cultures. Something that feels friendly to you can come across as confusing, inappropriate or outright offensive elsewhere.
To prevent missteps, research your target market thoroughly and validate your design choices with native users or local experts. Whenever possible, use culturally neutral colors and images to avoid having to tailor your visuals to each region and diluting the strength of your brand identity.
- Overlooking the after-sales experience
The after-sales experience has a big influence on whether a customer will return or not, so don’t make the mistake of not thinking past the purchase decision.
Meet your customers’ expectations by providing support in their language and via their preferred channels, whether that’s phone, email, in-app chat or something else. A positive support experience builds loyalty, ensuring they’ll come back to you.
- Neglecting basic UX principles
Focusing on localization is important, but that doesn’t mean you should forget about the basic aspects of a good user experience.
Always keep in mind the 7 UX design principles outlined by Peter Morville: a product must be useful, usable, findable, credible, accessible, desirable and valuable in order to succeed.
Localization must build on these principles, not replace them, delivering a user experience that feels familiar while maintaining the same level of quality and optimization as the original one.
Real-world examples of UX localization
Creating a truly local experience requires time, effort and a deep understanding of diverse cultures, languages and user behaviors.
Some global brands have invested significant resources into adapting every aspect of their user experience to meet the unique needs and expectations of their target audiences worldwide, becoming benchmarks for successful UX localization. Here are a few standout examples:
IKEA’s localized UX increased revenue in Korea
When IKEA decided to launch a localized version of their South Korean website, they put together a dedicated team to fully understand local user behaviors, cultural expectations and shopping habits, ensuring that every aspect of the digital experience would feel intuitive and relevant to Korean consumers.
User testing revealed that the previous browsing and shopping experience clashed with Korean users’ mental models: unrelatable home configurations, overly complex navigation, unclear product categories and insufficient filtering options were only some of the issues observed.
To address this, the team reorganized the information architecture by introducing a new categorization and naming system in order to improve clarity. For example, the “Dining” section was considered too ambiguous by the users and was therefore renamed “Kitchen furniture”.
Since the localized version was launched in 2018, IKEA Korea saw a 29% increase in revenue.
The company has applied similar localization efforts in other markets. In China, IKEA offers integrations with popular apps like WeChat and Tmall to provide a seamless shopping experience. In India, their website features a dedicated product category for items that are particularly useful during the monsoon season.
Disney meets local demands for streaming
Disney+ Hotstar, the localized version of Disney+ in India, is a standout example of UX localization that thoughtfully addresses both technical limitations and cultural preferences.
The app includes several market-specific features, such as:
- Optimized performance – A streamlined layout designed for lower bandwidths ensures smooth performance in urban and rural areas alike.
- Culturally relevant content – Local content like Bollywood movies, Indian TV shows and sports events that are popular in the region, like cricket competitions, are highlighted and prioritized in the layout of the app.
- Freemium access – A freemium model (that’s not available in Western markets) allows users to watch select content with ads without having to pay for a subscription, lowering the barrier to entry.
- Local payment options – Local payment methods like UPI and Paytm are covered, allowing users to purchase the service in whichever way they prefer.
Spotify’s tailored content selection
Aside from being available in 74 different languages, Spotify goes the extra mile when it comes to UX localization by curating region-specific podcasts and playlists to reflect local trends and search behaviors.
“Spotify is made for you. We want it to feel personalized, and a key aspect of the app feeling personal is that it’s adapted for where you’re located, your culture, and the language you prefer for your experience.”
They’re very open about their localization process, which mindfully takes style, formatting, tone of voice and design requirements into consideration in order to accommodate the cultural and technical needs associated with different languages and cultures.
The company relies on their product design team to understand how visual elements can be interpreted differently, which led them to change the visual themes for Diwali (the Festival of Lights) from darker to lighter colors after discovering they were preferred by their Indian audience.
We mentioned Spotify curates playlists suited to local tastes, but they don’t stop there: even the thumbnails differ from country to country to reflect cultural norms and preferences, helping users feel a stronger sense of belonging.
Airbnb, a global formula for global travel
Here’s another brand that doesn’t stop at supporting over 80 languages, but has evolved from simple translation to a fully localized user experience that includes the automatic adaptation of currencies, date formats and measurement units.
The company also provides region-specific travel guides complete with tips, events and things to do, customized to the destination selected by the user. Additionally, user reviews are automatically translated using machine translation, making peer feedback accessible to everyone.
Since group travel is more common in China, Airbnb introduced a feature that allows users to book experiences together, paying with local options like AliPay and WeChat.
In 2018, Airbnb moved away from its previous “one-size-fits-all” approach focused solely on translation to implement a more comprehensive UX localization strategy that, among other things, added right-to-left support in all versions of the app.
This shift not only improved usability, but also helped Airbnb build deeper trust and engagement with users, positioning the brand as a model for best practices in localization.
Bumble and inclusive, culturally-aware design
Alex Timin, Lead Backend Engineer at Bumble, shared some insights about the brand’s localization strategy in an interview.
First of all, the team ensures the copy is linguistically correct, appropriate for the target market and compliant with local regulations. Then they investigate regional language variants, e.g. determining how Mexican Spanish is different from Spain Spanish and if users from these two countries would understand and react to the content in the same way.
“Some companies don’t understand that localization can be a big part in the success of a product. So if you want your product to be used around the world, you have to localize it, and you have to invest in localization.”
They’re also mindful of the importance of correctly representing users’ gender, actively addressing the challenges posed by gendered languages in order to provide a more inclusive experience. Most women don’t enjoy being addressed as men just because “it’s easier” to localize this way — it’s a small but impactful detail that can make the entire experience feel impersonal and robotic, rather than thoughtful and human-centered.
Tone of voice plays a crucial role too: different versions are tested to identify which style resonates best with local users, and the most effective one is selected for that market.
The cherry on top? Bumble curates a unique selection of icebreaker questions for each country, incorporating cultural references only locals would understand and appreciate, making the experience even more familiar, personal and culturally grounded.
Not enough? Here you’ll find more real-life examples of successful localization.
The true impact of UX localization
In today’s interconnected world, UX localization isn’t just an extra: it’s a crucial requirement for any business aiming for global success. By thoughtfully adapting your app or website’s design, content and functionality to local cultures and expectations, you create more meaningful experiences and build stronger, more authentic connections with your customers.
While the value of translation is widely acknowledged, UX localization is often neglected, even though its impact on user engagement, customer loyalty and overall business performance is just as direct.
Investing in a comprehensive UX localization strategy doesn’t just help avoid cultural missteps — it sends a clear message of respect and empathy. It shows your customers that you understand them and their world, speak their language (literally and figuratively) and care about the experience you’re offering. It’s the kind of effort that helps build trusting, lasting relationships and paves the way to global growth.
