The UX Design Differences between North America & China

I got asked by an interviewer on this the other day. At first, I asked myself how come I can compare UX difference between these two distinct locations with so different demographics. UX seems universal to me, consisting of components like easy to understand, learn, remember, navigate, and find the information, at last usable. And the first difference would the Chinese market is much larger than the North America, where designers may not be able to collect as many requirements and user feedbacks to work on the UX as in China. The second difference that came to my mind would be the langauge, which may lead to some cultural difference on parsing the interface and interaction with certain products.

However, when the interviewer restated the question was on the user experience difference between North America and China. I realized I may still not get the point of the interviewers after two tries and went desperate, but recalled the other day when I was discussing healthcare digital product design with some marketing staff from a mobile health company, she said it seemed much easier to get funds in North America with a simple application while in China, they developed more sophisticated features while having trouble receiving funds. Then, I rephrased this comparison and replied to the interviewer that I think Chinese tends to desire all or one-stop service from a certain product, like for a medical app, users or designers may agree on full features like medical educational contents, how to edit a medical case for staff in hospitcals, messaging and collaboration for everyday use. In comparison, the counterparts in North America may be more focused on important features that will bring in more add-on values.

After the interview, I’m still hovered by this question for a long time. It is a big question. When reflecting, I realized I should have clarified the question down to a smaller scope with the interviewer. It is actually the demographical preference. China has a large population, while if I limited the North America to Canada country I would say has a multicultural population. Although there are a lot of mobile apps available on the Chinese market, the inevitable one to talk about would be WeChat, which is an instant messaging application for almost every Chinese to use in daily life, now becoming the first touchpoint for Chinese with the internet or main entrance of their digital life. While in fact, this application at the very start learned much from the Canadian startup Kik, which at present falls behind WeChat.

Besides WeChat, Xiami music, AliPay, and Zhihu are all the major mobile apps on the Chinese market. From the Design of these apps, we can see the following five unique features on UX, which we may not often see from Candian apps or apps from North America.

1. On updating app features, they will articulate what features are enhanced and what bugs are fixed, which at least give users why they should update the app.
2. Most of the features are organized in a logical manner, where you won’t find it repetitive. The information architecture is clear and hierachical though sometimes it will bring information overload.
3. They are actively embracing new-trend of interface or interaction design, which often bring a fresh visual impression to users that they are quite lively especially for users to know the company is continuous improving.
4. The apps try to make the most of its network with other entities, or rather they are quite connected in terms of how the app connects to the real world. For example, Alipay can pays the hydro and public transit for users, and so can WeChat. In reality, it’s really common to link the WeChat accounts with bank card accounts, which may be considered weird for people from North America.
5. The notification setting are kept concise, it will not disturb users when not necessary.

On the other hand, when we inspect Canadian or North American apps, like Facebook, Instagram, kik and Figure 1, there are also two unique points of UX.

1. The feeds are usually in a cascade format, but personally I would say lack organization, which tends to leave an impression for me like a dumpster of information. Just like the feed of Facebook/Instagram or the medical cases feeds on Figure 1, you will get desperately lost if you keep scrolling, drowned in feeds mixed with friends or social media accounts.
2. The information on certain apps are definitely more diversified in terms of the languages, like the medical cases on Figure 1 are available in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. But maybe more integration should be carried out for people to understand each other more. Languages sometimes could be a double-sided sword.

Anyway, these differences boil down to cultural difference. This interview question just taught me a lesson that the conversation will be open-ended and learn to act reactively, not letting yourself fall into a dillema as interviewers may tend to set you in.