An often overlooked, but vital ingredient to successful website localization: UX/UI

Ten seconds. This is how much time your brand has to make an impression on your web visitors before they leave.

If your site doesn’t offer the visitor content in their preferred language, common sense suggests you have fewer than 10 seconds to hold their attention.

With that in mind, user interface/user experience (UI/UX) is vital to the success of a website’s localization efforts by ensuring that the user is immediately and appropriately engaged.

Lower bounce rates. Increased sales. Greater impact.

Companies that invest in localization are able to gain greater customer trust and confidence while increasing their competitive advantage.

When developing a new website, mobile app or software, localization strategies should be considered from the very beginning. Localization experts can help your team find the most appropriate language, site architecture, tools and content management process to create an engaging, positive customer experience.

With a proven UI/UX consultant and web developer, like 729 Solutions, your customers can be assured of a premium, engaging website experience.

The importance of a UI/UX consultant to your website localization success

How do your visitors select their preferred language? How does your website handle dynamic content? These are just two of the many UI/UX questions we can answer.

Localization can be complex. It presents many options for a company to handle the way content is presented. To help create a seamless experience, while also maintaining your brand’s unique personality, you’ll need a UI/UX consultant and web developer to prepare, track and implement every detail.

A third-party consultant or in-house expert can perform site audits, check industry trends and facilitate testing prototypes. They’ll work with your localization team to formulate a plan of action for website maintenance, future updates and matching your needs with your budget.

UI/UX consultants are your first step toward building localization into your project plan—making it a priority, rather than an afterthought. The earlier their consultation is utilized, the better.

What a web developer can add to your localization program

An experienced web developer is well-versed in proven best practices and specializes in the particular code languages required to get the job done.

The best ones keep one eye on the “big-picture” goals and the other on the hundreds of development details that form the framework of a successful website.

Your web developer should be able to steer your company towards the best localization-ready CMS application for your needs, along with how your localization agency can best integrate with that CMS.

The dangers of avoiding UI/UX or web developer expertise

We get it. Budgets can get slashed. Scopes can creep. Deadlines can change.

Also, it would be disingenuous of us to say that you absolutely have to use a UI/UX consultant or web developer on your team to succeed.

There are plenty of tools available to help you localize your website without the need for these experts’ skill sets. However, as with any out-of-the-box software and third-party tools, there’s a limit to the customization you’ll be able to accomplish, and a lack of human thought that a UI/UX consultant or web developer will afford you.

These tools are not designed to tackle your big-picture goals, overarching pain points and long-term strategy. It’s better to work with a partner or hire an internal consultant to avoid having to rework code, rethink strategy and redo critical steps.

The most successful multi-language websites offer a seamless, pleasant interaction between user and brand. These experiences don’t happen by accident. They involve professional localization and translation teams, proven processes and technologies, UI/UX experts and web developers who can help bring these strategies to life. See how Acclaro can help get you on the right track to success from the very beginning.