Companies with a global brand and audience often implement standards, guidelines, and templates based upon local user and business requirements.
Regional differences among users lead to modifications of design decisions.
Structure and organization of information is subjective and context-dependent. There is not one single way to structure and organize.
Successful information solutions with a global audience have matching design, user characteristics and brand attributes. Strong consistency increases usability and brand behaviour. Culture, needs and technology skills are relevant user charactersitics. Brand perception is different in various regions. A style guide with design decisions as standards, guidelines, and templates is evaluated. The evaluation impacts visual design, information architecture, and interaction design as well as regional business requirements.
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Design Style Guide Evaluation for Regional Use
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The Client |
A global company implements an online branding style guide
An automotive company has a footprint in several continents. Regional management operates in different markets, competitors and customers and acts within a global brand space. Opportunities for online branding made the client decide on a strategic initiative and commissioned a business strategy and technology company to develop a long term online branding strategy. The client intends to increase the global brand awareness and to implement it across all regional subsidiaries.
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The Problem |
Regional management wants to valide for its market
The objective of the online branding initiative is a coherent and consistent brand behaviour. As part of the initiative, an accompanying style guide is produced. In the style guide various standards, guidelines and templates for design disciplines are specified, including visual design, interaction design, information architecture and navigation. All strategic design decisions are made by an US design company in conjunction with an example web implementation. The Japanese management refused to implement the style guide without any regional validation.
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The Process |
Card sorting and usability tests to identify design issues
- To analyze the online brand strategy and the accompanying style guide.
- To interview user and client representatives on brand perception and business requirements.
- To perform card sorting exercises to identify classification issues.
- To identify expectations and information needs of users.
- To develop user personas and scenarios to contribute to the empathy of the design team.
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The Results |
Information architecture and navigation in sync with local requirements
Various modifications of the standards, guidelines, and templates regarding the navigation model ('Where am I?', 'Where can I go to?', and 'How to get there?'), information architecture ('site map with sections and subsections') and controlled vocabulary ('How to call things'). Ability to integrate regional requirements such as entertainment, increase of visual information, integration with car magazine content, and content areas such as company museum, credit cards and second hand car sales.
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