- Customers often want to buy products
from international e-commerce sites.
However, they were often uncomfortable shopping
in another language
even when they were able to speak that language.
Luckily, increasing number of e-commerce sites have started
to offer multiple language versions
to meet their global audience's needs,
and expand their customer base.
Unfortunately, many of them failed
to make their language switcher usable,
disappointing international shoppers.
Here are six tips to help improve your language switcher,
and satisfy your global customers.
First, default to the language version
that matches users' browser settings.
This approach helps users avoid using
the language switcher at all.
It saves them an extra step,
if you can do the work for them.
In an e-commerce study in China,
the Net-A-Porter site automatically displayed
its Chinese version with the CNY currency
based on the user's browser settings.
Participants were delighted with this default.
However, it isn't always possible to do this automatically.
If a site can't detect the user's country,
it's better to ask the user to identify their country
rather than risk making an incorrect guess.
Second, put the language switcher
in the top corners of desktop sites.
Across time and cultures,
we found that users looked to the upper right corner
to change a country or language setting.
If they couldn't find it there,
they would turn to the top left corner.
We observed this behavior
in both American and Chinese participants.
When sites violated this convention,
users spent a lot more time
looking for the language switcher,
sometimes failing to find it at all.
For instance, the FEELUNIQUE site put its language switcher
at the very bottom of the site, below the footer.
A Chinese participant spent several minutes
on FEELUNIQUE's English version,
and failed to realize that she could have been shopping
in her native language, Chinese.
On mobile sites, the language switcher should be
above the fold, or inside the hamburger menu,
to make it discoverable.
Space is always limited on mobile screens,
so you may not be able to put it in the top right
or left corner.
Still, you need to make sure users can locate it
within the hamburger menu, like what LOOKFANTASTIC did,
but as Maybe Baby failed to do.
The fourth tip is to display the name
of an available language in that language.
For instance, Español instead of Spanish.
This ensures that users won't miss the menu items
they wanna choose.
An English speaker will know what English means
when it's written in English,
but likely not when it's written in Chinese.
Fifth, make the switcher easy to notice
by using a combination of symbols,
including the name of the country, or the language,
the national flag, and its currency symbol.
This will make the switcher bigger
and more likely to be recognized,
and also work as a reminder helping user understand
what they can change on this site.
Last, but not least, allow users to change language,
country, and currency separately.
Some shoppers wanted to see product information
in the original language, in case it would be more detailed.
Some believed there would be more products listed
on the original site.
Others wanted to use a different currency
to get a better exchange rate.
Provide the flexibility to satisfy these diverse needs.
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