How Culture Shapes Website Design

When designing a website, the developer or business owner will have a target audience in mind and structure their website accordingly. However, as this business grows and starts to branch out into different markets, they may start to serve different clientele. The target audience may be the same, but their culture will likely differ due to the fact they reside in a different country.

With this in mind, I started to think whether websites across the world truly differ in their design. And with this thought I decided to investigate, until I had to claw myself desperately out of this rabbit hole, as the topic is as deep as the Mariana Trench.

So this is by no means a comprehensive list and I have left out entire continents for the interest of brevity. There is still a lot more to explore but I wanted to give just a flavour to those not aware of how different cultures interpret good website design.

Europe versus USA

Rather than dissect European and American websites seperately, I felt it would be more interesting to compare them. Also, as you'll see frequently in this article, I will often generalise whole continents because I frankly don't have the capacity to examine each country, despite the fact they all have their own unique traits. Therefore, I am already committing a mortal sin by referring to certain websites as "European", even though in my own mind, I'm not sure how such a distinction exists, due to its multitude of countries, languages and culture. But I digress.

Firstly, perhaps as English is often the lingua franca of not just American websites but also many European ones, there are a lot of similarities between the two. For example, in terms of its website copy, both cultures may utilize more directness in their calls to action and, particularly in the case of ecommerce websites, be optimised towards conversions. This often means fewer clicks to a conversion such as the one-click purchase feature you see in Amazon. In addition there is a strong social media integration to strengthen engagement as well as customer service. Yet here is where the similarities start to dwindle.

According to Seattle-based web design agency Visualwebz, websites produced in the USA have a stronger focus on personalisation, to reinforce individualism . If you think of powerhouses such as Amazon or Expedia, they offer the user various ways to refine or personalise their search via numerous filters. Visualwebz continues that UK websites on the other hand tend to utilise a more simplistic approach, which actually backs up what I wrote about in an earlier blog post about the UK's government website . French websites, apparently, tend to employ larger media assets to garner attention, one example being the fashion brand Saint Laurent, and Scandinavian websites are hyper focused on simplicity and practicability. Perhaps this is no evident than from the furniture store Nordic Nest .

But website design becomes more interesting when we look elsewhere in the world.

Africa

Similar to discussing European websites, to write about website trends in Africa is again a gross generalisation. The cultural and linguistic diversity in even just parts of this continent are mind-blowing, and in interest of writing just a few short paragraphs about it, rather than an entire thesis, I will have to oversimplify. Nevertheless, as Africa is one of the largest continents, most of which is vast and sparsely populated, in many communities its internet speed is not the fastest compared to the rest of the world (but to be honest, is probably faster than what you get in Berlin). As a result, one of the main challenges is developing a website that can load seemlessly on a slow internet connection. It is for this reason that you see a heavy use of Progressive Web Apps or PWAs.

PWAs initialise image compression and run on minimal code in order to reduce potential lag on its initial load. They can also store assets such as text and images locally on the user's device, so that the app can run even when offline. Some examples of this are the Kenya news website Mpasho or the ecommerce pan-African Jumia, specifically the Nigerian domain . Interestingly, both of these websites show an abundance of image assets and if anything, minimal text usage.

Middle East

For middle-eastern countries, I will be focusing on websites designed for arabic users. Therefore, the first distinction of these websites would be obvious that they would follow a right-to-left structure, contrary to the West's left-to-right reading style. And this difference has all the influence on the structure of the website.

For example, when you open a popup window, the familiar cross icon to close it is on the top-left as oppose to the top-right. This also goes for button placement for accepting cookies and of course where the text is aligned (default aligned to the right as opposed to the left side). You will see this with Shahid , a Saudi Arabian streaming service, as well as with Shafaq, an Iraqi news website.

Although such an experience may be jarring for someone like me, it's most likely more familiar to an arabic user than a western website.

Asia

Like every continent mentioned here, Asia itself could constitute its own article. For example, according to web design agency InSync , in general: chinese websites love using bright colours and imagery, Japanese web designers favour animations, and Indian websites tend to make use of illustrations for information sharing. One trait they all share however, the agency explains, is that web designers in Asia keep spacing between elements to a minimal, as opposed to their European or American counterparts.

Japanese website design itself can get quite interesting. For instance, due to its culture of "Anshin", which refers to the reassurance of no surprises in the user experience, Japanese websites tend to show as much information on their websites as possible . One reason for this is that Japanese users feel more reassured when they have all the product details at hand before making a decision. This is evident with ecommerce websites such as Raktuen and Bic camera . Interestingly, such a focus would usually be discouraged for American or European websites, so as not to overload the user.

In order to showcase examples, I have completely rammed this article with links. But to add just one more and completely penalise this article's SEO ranking, here you can see a nice collage of websites across the world .

In summary I have barely scratched the surface when it comes to how culture can influence website design, but I hope the examples I gave offered at least a slither of inspiration. It's easy to forget that what you may consider normal for a website structure, may be deemed by others to be unusual if not disorientating.