Beyond content translation:
designing for reformulation and transcreation.
My Work Methodologies
Culturally-relevant Design
Why Culturally-relevant Design
A requisite for cultural accessibility
Designing for a global market is beyond content translation. Since different regions tend to have their own languages and cultures, straightforward translations are not always understandable for users from diverse markets.
By designing within regional contexts, culturally-relevant design helps to ensure the company's values and business stories are culturally accessible to audiences worldwide. It is not a "nice-to-have" for international business, but a requisite to help ensure audiences from diverse cultural backgrounds are not disabled in the brand's global communication.
The Challenge
More ambiguity in multicultural tasks
Due to cultural differences within the teamwork and regional markets, I face more ambiguity. How to understand my stakeholders and the audience and provide flexible solutions are two challenges in my design practices. My values of empathy and agility enable me to develop methodologies accordingly to help me navigate the ambiguity and solve the problems. Here are two of them, with stakeholders, and for audiences.
Methodology 01| With Stakeholders
Understanding the reasons behind disagreements
In cross-nation collaboration, stakeholders may have different perspectives due to their diverse cultural backgrounds. Understanding the rationales behind their disagreements, not only helps to define the problem but also provides more opportunities for my design solutions.
· Case Example| Mania Refinement (Alibaba AliExpress, 2021) ·
Turned a disagreement into a product opportunity by investigating stakeholders' conflict
By investigating my stakeholders' disagreement through communications, user research, and product analysis, I identified the gap and key initiatives for Mania. By redefining the strategy and design of Mania, I turned this conflict into an opportunity, which led to a 37% increase in sales.
Methodology 02 | For Audiences
Context reformulates the story: crafting for a specific context
To create a culturally accessible design communication, I need to understand the audience's context first. There are many elements to help complete a context, for instance, platforms, target audiences, and brands in cultures. Some key elements can lead my design solutions to different directions. Here are some examples.
01. Platforms
Since different platforms have their own requirements and features, to attract our target audiences, I customize my design solutions agilely based on platforms and their user preferences.
· Different Platforms |Case Example 01 ·
How to call on audiences to fly with Amazon in our Mini App?
Fly With Amazon (Amazon, 2020)
According to our research, in WeChat Mini Apps, users are more prone to be attracted by simple games with rewards. By crafting an easy and engaging game "Fly With Amazon" with coupons as rewards, we successfully attracted the target audience for our new WeChat Mini App Store.
· Different Platforms |Case Example 02 ·
How to attract audiences to our Live stream?
CEO’s Top Selections (Amazon, 2019)
To attract audiences in prime time, we let users decide the topic of our live stream by inviting them to vote for their favorite topics. According to the vote, we invited the CEO of Amazon CN to share his Top Selections for our customers in our live stream.
· Different Platforms |Case Example 03 ·
How to help users customize their dreams on Weibo?
Readers Are Dreamers (Kindle, 2019)
"@UserName" and adding hashtags are popular features on Weibo (Twitter in China). By collaborating with eight brands, we enabled users to customize "their dreams" by @ and hashtagging eight brands on Weibo, which generated 3.04 MM reads and 16.5 K engagements for Kindle.
02. Target Audiences
Even on the same platform, the uniqueness of diverse audience groups guides me to totally different design solutions. Often time, I start with understanding the audiences through user interviews, and user research to find opportunities.
· Different Audiences on WeChat |Case Example 01 ·
An Adventure In The Ancient Palace For Culture Lovers
First Snow Embraces Forbidden City (Kindle & Forbidden City, 2018)
· Different Audiences on WeChat |Case Example 02 ·
A "Buy Q" Quiz For Deal Hunters
Buy Q Test (Amazon Prime, 2018)
· Different Audiences on WeChat |Case Example 03 ·
Somewhere In The Universe For Knowledge Explorers
Kindler Annual Reading Report (Kindle, 2019)
Example 01| Amazon CEO’s Top Selections
Amazon, 2019
How to attract audiences to our live stream on WeChat?
To attract audiences to our live stream in prime time, we invited WeChat subscribers to vote for their favorite topics. According to the result, we invited the CEO of Amazon CN to share his Top Selections for our customers in our live stream.
03. Brands In Cultures
Each regional market has its own language and culture. Designing in a culture-friendly way helps the brand communicate with audiences worldwide efficiently. How to take part in local traditions with a global tone and manner? How to reformulate the brand's values into local narratives?
· Brands In Cultures |Case Example 01 ·
How to celebrate local festivals with a global tone and manner?
By designing with the global tone and manner, we celebrated the Year Of The Mouse by reviving some local traditions, such as the Lucky Draw, making up for family unions, in an Amazon way.
CNY Campaign (Amazon, 2020)
· Brands In Cultures |Case Example 02 ·
How to reformulate brands into local narratives?
CNY Illustration For Social Media (Ogilvy, 2017)
· Brands In Cultures |Case Example 03 ·
How to transcreate global concepts into local stories?
Parade of Deals (Global Concept)
Amazon Deal - Hunter’s Day (Local Concept)
