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Culture is often the most readily overlooked aspect of a website design or redesign project. Too often, companies get bogged down in the politics of "real estate," artistic templates and brand messaging, and they do not consider how important a role culture plays in the design of a website.
A major Silicon Valley company redesigned its Japanese website within the last several months. All the contracts were signed, layout approved and verbiage coded. However, no one bothered to show the beta site to any Japanese employee within the company or even to share it with the firm's office personnel in Japan. The site was launched, and it was soon discovered that a prominent design element was considered culturally offensive to the Japanese target audience. The site stayed "live" for only two days before the US and Japanese offices were deluged with e-mails in English and Japanese addressing the design flaw. Luckily, the site was taken off-line in time so that minimal damage was done to the image of the company.
This example illustrates that if companies are rushed to get content on-line, they might balk at doing any further research into something that they do not understand or that is quantitatively intangible: culture.
Once the question of intended audience is answered, the parameters of the cultural interface between creators and users of the site come into focus. Managing cultural differences in a virtual environment requires a thorough understanding of the principles of intercultural communication, as well as how these principles need to be applied and, in some cases, modified because of the peculiar nature of virtual collaboration.
Liesl Leary, Senior Localization Strategist, ENLASO Corp.
Liesl Leary is a Senior Localization Strategist at ENLASO. She consults with organizations, like Satmetrix Systems, who require localization systems and process analysis to deploy efficient and cost-effective localization programs. In addition to her experience working with localization, Liesl has also worked as a Business Systems Analyst where she administered corporate best practice research that led to significant improvements in sales order entry processes. Educated both in the United States and in Europe, Liesl has a degree in International East Asian studies with course work completed in Beijing, China and 5 years of working in the localization industry.
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