So, what exactly is the Regionalization of UX?
Regionalization means considering the entire context of people’s different needs in other parts of the world. Over here, we are talking about the regionalization of User Experience. That means considering the User Experience of people and their needs towards it in other parts of the world.
Why we are talking about regionalization?
Product teams too often misunderstand their customer’s region to be the same as their sales regions, then conflate region with language and various settings.
Regionalization means considering the entire context of people’s different needs in other parts of the world, not just hiring some service to change the display language.
A lot of digital products eventually work well for the billions of people outside your home region.
What Is Interaction Design & How Does It Compare To UX?
A simple way to explain Interaction Design by Steve Job is “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like Design is how it works.” It stresses on the importance of having a good interaction design – the user’s overall experience and satisfaction with a brand.
User Experience Design is about positively shaping the experience of people using a product or service, and a major part of that experience involves interaction between the user and the product or service. But Interaction Design and User Experience aren’t synonymous.
Interactive Content
Here are some examples that we can relate to - Blog comments, social media sharing & liking buttons, social media follow buttons, social media updates & shares (likes, retweets, comments), customer reviews, online surveys, web apps, online games, mobile apps, hangouts, webinars, and courses.
Pros:
1. Cheap to set up: Most blog software comes with built-in comments and a back-end to manage them. The same goes for social media sites. There are plenty of inexpensive online services for creating surveys and even sites for building web and mobile apps at lower costs than hiring a developer.
2. Provide social proof: If your people and brand engage regularly and promote high-quality content, they can generate substantial numbers of followers and even brand advocates on social media.
3. Increase brand loyalty and reputation: Companies that engage with potential buyers and customers when they ask questions or share comments enjoy substantial competitive advantages over companies that ignore these channels.
Cons:
1. Potentially dangerous: With interactive media, there is always a risk that your brand can suffer from negative comments from both inside and outside the company walls.
2. Not cheap: You need to monitor the channels at all times to make sure you respond to both positive and negative comments and keep your followers engaged with fresh, relevant content. This involves manpower, training, and talent.
3. Hard to swallow: Most companies struggle with social and other interactive media channels because of all kind of legal, regulatory, and brand reputation liabilities. The question is, what if you don’t engage in social channels? Can the same damage occur without you even knowing it?
Designing the content first for a better experience?
Imagine, you are given the task of designing the package for a Soap brand. The first set of questions you would ask are, “Is it a soap bar or gel?” then “What is the quantity?”, “What kind of fragrance does the soap have?”, “What is its shape, if it is a bar?” so on and so forth.
Now if the client says, “The fragrance and shape haven’t been decided yet. But let’s make the packaging first keeping a generic soap bar in mind. We can think of these things, later.” In this scenario, where would you start? What colours will you use? What will be the messaging on the packaging? What kind of visuals would you use?
Will you be able to come up with a design for the packaging without any of these coherent details? Obviously, the answer is ‘NO’!
Likewise, while designing the User Experience of a website, the content is like the ‘Soap bar’ and the packaging, the UX design you come up with. Here are some of the reasons why UX designers and product owners need to start adopting a content-first approach.
1.Content helps shape the design
2.Content helps chart out the user journey efficiently
3.The content-first approach helps in effective responsive design
Conclusion
Digital design is a conversation that happens between a machine and the person who uses it. When people interact with a product, they love having smooth interactions, but it only happens when interaction designers make things right.
When it comes to content, finalizing the content before starting the design also helps decide on break-points in text layout while designing for various device-sizes.
In the end, it’s all about finding the right mix. Ideally, you want to evolve your web presence into all of these channels and brands.