International audience

Best Practice Examples:

Best Practice Solution:

Decide what suits your business best:

• A localized website: complete local version of a site adopted to the language, local business practice, currency, product selection etc.
• An international website: aiming at a global market, it extended its services and communication to be usable in other parts of the world.

This best practice focuses on international websites. If your website is in English and you advertise it in media with an international audience you will get visitors from all over the world. If you don’t offer services to an international audience it is best to communicate this as soon as possible, do not wait until people start to register or start a purchase.

Some general do’s and don’ts when designing for an international audience:

• Use international date notation (spell out the name of the month, see design pattern for dates) to avoid confusion.
• Communicate possible technical restrictions for the use of products in other countries such as power cords, protection codes, different standard codes, etc…
• Offer on-line conversion for used measures and currencies. If users are logged in, present the data in their preferred form, if this is entered in their profile.
• Handle international character sets correctly, so all users can enter their names and addresses in correct spelling. These sets contain characters such as: Ø, ß, å etc..
• Avoid number confusion. In the US and Europe points and commas are used as different separators.
  • US: comma=thousands separator and point=decimal separator
  • Europe: comma=decimal separator and point=thousands separator

Provide correct feedback.  If there is any doubt over interpretation, ask the user what is meant.

International addresses

• Use the label “ZIP/Postal code” instead of “ZIP” or “ZIP code” many international users do not know what a ZIP code is.
• Place the postal code field before the city-name field. For many non-US users the postal code is closely related to the city.
• Accept different forms of postal codes since they differ in format greatly: 12309, BE-2100, NL-5346 GD
• Do not make the State/Province field mandatory
• Write US-state names in full. Many non-US visitors mistake the “State” selection list for the “country” selection list. If state names are spelled out they immediately see that they are looking in the wrong list.
• If possible disable the “State” selection list if a country is selected that does not include state or province information in the address. This avoids confusion and mis-selection.
• Support international phone numbers and the different forms in which they might get entered: +12 23 123.12.23, 0012231231223, +12 (0)23 123/12/23 etc.

Shipping information

• Show shipping restriction on your homepage.
• Repeat shipping restrictions on the “shipping information page”. Many users proceed to the checkout procedure without noticing any of the restrictions. To be sure users understand why they cannot enter their country it is best to repeat any shipping restrictions here.
• Ask for a postal code or country as soon as possible to be able to provide the user with correct shipping information.
• Place all shipping information on the pages people look for shipping restrictions such as:
  • Customer service
  • Homepage
  • Shipping information
  • Frequently asked questions
  • About us
• Provide clear access to the page with all shipping information, and make it accessible before users start the checkout process.

When to use:

If you expect an intenational audience for your website and choose not to create localized websites.

Why To use this Best Practice:

The internet has an international audience. Local boundaries fade and many users do not pay attention to the origin of the site they are using. Especially if the site is in English many users expect it to be international. If you serve an international audience it is best to keep in mind the local differences that do still exist.

More info elsewhere:

• “E-Commerce User Experience”, book by J. Nielsen, R. Molich, C. Snyder and S. Farrell
• “International address fields in web forms” on www.uxmatters.com

• Categorized as Best Practices