Multilingual Sites & UX Improvement — IA, Research Planning, and Recommendations
A body of work across multilingual website and UX improvement projects, including a global home appliance manufacturer and a resort hotel, each serving approximately five languages. The work covered information architecture, key user journeys, wireframes, UX recommendations, and qualitative research scenarios and questionnaires as part of the project teams. It continued through design coordination, review, implementation, and publication.
Period: Jul 2014 – May 2015
Where this experience applies
This work involved reviewing multilingual websites across language-specific content structures, information discoverability, decision-making support, and key user journeys, then turning the findings into UX recommendations and research plans.
- Reviewing the structure and key journeys of a multilingual website
- Checking whether users have enough information to make booking or purchase decisions
- Turning website-review findings into concrete improvement proposals
- Preparing site maps, wireframes, research scenarios, and questionnaires
- Connecting UX recommendations with design production and implementation
Overview
This page brings together several multilingual website and UX improvement projects completed between July 2014 and May 2015. Representative examples include a global home appliance manufacturer and a resort hotel, each serving approximately five languages. As part of the project teams, I contributed to website reviews, information architecture, key journey design, qualitative research scenarios and questionnaires, and UX recommendation materials. After the recommendations were prepared, I also supported designer sourcing and assignment, communicated design requirements through wireframes and specification documents, reviewed the resulting work, and helped carry the website changes through implementation and publication.
Background
The websites served users across approximately five languages, including English. Key journeys such as booking, plan comparison, product understanding, and purchase consideration needed to work across different language versions. The work covered language-specific page structures, the placement of important information, relationships between pages, and paths toward the next action. The site structure was reviewed to help users understand, compare, and make decisions across these journeys.
Challenge
The challenge was to organize multilingual information into a structure that supported understanding, comparison, and decision-making, then translate the findings into implementable recommendations and research plans.
- Information required for booking or product understanding was distributed across multiple pages
- Relationships between overview pages, detail pages, related content, and calls to action needed clarification
- Priorities across key journeys and language-specific page structures needed to be reviewed
- Detailed information needed to remain accessible without making the initial page difficult to scan
- Improvement ideas needed to be translated into research scenarios and questions
- The recommendations needed to be documented clearly enough to support design production and implementation
Approach
Website Review and Improvement Framing
I reviewed the overall site and key pages, focusing on the information and paths required for booking, plan comparison, product understanding, and purchase consideration. The review process also drew on stakeholder discussions and selected analytics data available to the team.
Information Architecture and Key Journey Design
Using site maps, I reviewed relationships between overview pages, detail pages, editorial content, product or service pages, and booking paths. The structure was organized around a clearer sequence of understand, compare, and act.
Qualitative Research Preparation
I designed task scenarios and post-task questions around the assumptions that needed to be examined. Research goals were mapped to specific questions, with overall-site evaluation separated from page-level evaluation.
Resort Hotel Booking Journey
For the resort hotel, the review covered information required to evaluate availability, select dates, compare room types, and proceed with a booking. The recommendations addressed fragmented information and points where the next action needed to be clearer.
Product Understanding for a Global Home Appliance Manufacturer
For higher-priced home appliances, the work examined the specifications, use context, scale, and practical details needed for online purchase consideration. Recommendations included progressive disclosure and imagery showing products in hand or in realistic use contexts.
Connecting Recommendations with Design and Implementation
The recommendations were documented through site maps, wireframes, design requests, and specification documents. For two to three projects, I sourced and contacted designer candidates and participated in the assignment process with the team. I then reviewed the completed work and coordinated with the production team as the website changes moved through implementation and publication.
Design Highlights
Supporting Decision-Making Through Information Architecture
The work identified the information users needed before booking or purchasing and reviewed how overview pages, detail pages, related content, and calls to action worked together.
Designing Information Depth Progressively
Higher-priced products required several kinds of supporting information. Progressive disclosure allowed users to access specifications and practical details in stages according to their needs.
Communicating Real-World Product Context
Recommendations included imagery and content showing product scale and use context, such as how an appliance appeared when held or used.
Connecting Recommendations with Research Planning
The assumptions behind improvement proposals were mapped to task scenarios and research questions. This established what could be examined through user actions and responses if research was conducted.
Carrying the Work into Production
The work continued through wireframes, design requests, specification documents, design review, implementation, and publication in collaboration with the wider team.
Outputs
- Multilingual site maps and information architecture proposals
- Key user flows
- Wireframes
- UX recommendation materials
- Design requests and specification documents
- Task scenarios for qualitative research
- Usability research questionnaires
Outcome
- Organized the structure and key journeys of websites serving multiple languages
- Defined concrete improvement topics for booking and purchase-consideration journeys
- Contributed as a team member to site maps, wireframes, UX recommendations, research scenarios, and questionnaires
- Connected the recommendations with design production and published website changes
- Worked across information architecture, research preparation, design coordination, and implementation review as a continuous process
Selected Outputs
Site Map / Information Architecture
A site map structured around a clearer journey from understanding to comparison and action.
UX Improvement Proposal
Recommendations covering calls to action, related links, information depth, and progressive disclosure.
Usability Research Planning
Research-planning material connecting assumptions with post-task questions.
What This Work Demonstrates
This work involved reviewing multilingual websites across language-specific page structures, information architecture, key journeys, and the content required for decision-making. The findings were translated into site maps, wireframes, recommendation materials, research scenarios, and questionnaires, then carried through design production, implementation, and publication in collaboration with the project teams.