Designing Globally for Smartphones: Part 1
Choosing the right technology and international device for your user
As a designer who has spent a large portion of her career working mostly for American companies, I have, unsurprisingly, had a North American view of how products and services were used by users — also mostly American. But having recently spent 2 years working remotely and traveling, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering — what happens when you have to consider individuals who live overseas? Even more so, what if they’re your primary users? What happens when you have to consider digital product design for those that reside in China, but also watch as your product becomes popular in India? What changes, what caveats and concessions do you have to make as the designer; what is within your control and what is being enforced by that country’s government and political landscape? What can Chinese users afford when it comes to data, vs what do your Indian users want control of?
As you can tell these questions go much deeper than the basic iOS vs Android question which we, as designers, often start with. So, let’s start with a cursory glance at the different devices and corresponding technology available around the world.
1. Android is King Worldwide
A vast majority of smartphone devices owned outside the US and Western Europe are on the Android OS. Those numbers range from as low as 3 / 10 of the top spots held in Ireland to 9 / 10 of the top spots held in India for Q1 2018. Jayanti Katariya of Moon Technolabs does a great roundup of how dominate Android is worldwide, and some of the reasons as to why. With 87% of the worldwide market share in 2016, it’s a wonder Apple has been able to make a dent at all outside the US.
This Droid popularity is for a variety of reasons and isn’t considered new news. But what I became very aware of in the last year has been the variety of manufacturers for Android phones. In the US we’re familiar with the Samsung Galaxy family, Google Pixel, Motorola, and LG. But abroad there’s a plethora of manufacturers I hadn’t heard of before including Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Gionee and Asus. These manufacturers are most popular in India, China, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil and Nigeria amongst others. And many of the phones that these manufacturers produce have technology, features and capabilities different from what we know in the US.
Design tip: thoroughly research the popular smartphones in a region or specific country when beginning to narrow down on your audience’s needs. Consider what are currently the big players, as well as what new devices are projected to make a near-term impact. Sites like Device Atlas and Statista are pretty helpful here.
2. Bigger Screen Sizes Mean More Value
Outside of the US, smartphones run generally on the larger side of the spectrum, save for smaller, older devices that remain popular in both the Apple and Android camps. Some of the reasons for this desire in larger sizes include needs that connect back to cost, overall phone usage, and device turnover. When a smartphone is cheap, used frequently for most or all of one’s online tasks, and are expected to last a few years, users are going to want something flexible enough that suits a variety of needs.
With larger screen sizes, activities like watching videos, taking photos and browsing the internet become akin to performing the same tasks on a tablet or small laptop. And in some countries where one phone is the only piece of technology for that person and / or their entire family, this is a big deal. If a single device is shared by multiple users, this impacts the personalization of content, the ability to access your product at any given time and need to manage multiple user profiles. If it’s the only piece of technology for a single individual, it means they can’t multi-task between watching a show and sharing content. Interactions on a small device are more disruptive instead of being seamless and continuous. However, in regions where people are physically on the smaller side, small devices aren’t necessarily the answer, since large phones and small hands aren’t the best combination. Be aware of your average user’s build, typical use need and phone behavior to help you make smarter design decisions.
Design tip: getting into the nitty-gritty of screen size, resolution and color profiles for the most popular devices will set you up with better understanding your market. Just like different TVs display colors differently, the same applies to smartphones. A site like GSMArena is great for breaking down all the tech specs you could want for just about every smartphone imaginable.
3. Affordable Smartphones are a Relative Concept
Abroad, many individuals are able to purchase devices for far cheaper than we can here in the States. But I’m not talking about regions of the world like Western Europe and Australia where the similarities to the US are very strong. I’m referring to the rest of the world, where 7 billion other people reside and have a range of needs not accounted for by these 3 regions.
In India you can buy the Samsung Galaxy J2 for $112 USD. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 for $160 USD. And the Samsung Galaxy JS Prime for $174 USD. But what if you want the iPhone X? That’s going to cost you at least $1,220 USD. But with the gross national income (GNI) per capita in India being $7,060 USD in 2017 — not factoring in the huge amount of class disparity, location, gender and occupational factors — it’s pretty clear why the iPhone doesn’t come close to dominating this country while the Android does. In the Philippines, those same Android phones go for $92, $140 and $98 USD respectively. The iPhone X goes for $1,210 USD. But their GNI is even less than India’s at $3,580 USD in 2016.
Why is this relevant for design? Because devices that are affordable and are kept around for longer periods of time tend to be older, both in technology and in operating systems. OS updates to Android are pushed out by manufacturer, with Google’s family of Pixel products getting first dibs. After that, releases come out to users over time, which means there are a few OS available on the market at any given time. What this also means is that processing power of a user’s device can be much slower than the slickness of the iPhone X and latest Galaxy Note, thereby impacting those sexy design decisions.
Design tip: know your device landscape and account for that in your design decisions. If a majority of your users can’t, or won’t, have the latest Droid or iPhone don’t apply loads of processing heavy animations in your application. If you anticipate having a range of devices from high to low quality, plan out how the design degrades so some users aren’t left with a broken experience. Check out this article from Android Authority on the pace with which manufacturers make major OS updates available to users.
4. Limited Storage Space Makes for Picky Users
I alluded to this a bit in the previous section when it came to the graceful degradation of design, but here’s where we can get a bit more specific. As we know, phones have various storage sizes. For the iPhone X, the two storage sizes are 64GB and 256GB. This same concept applies to Droids sold by all those manufacturers listed out in point #1, but for the lower prices users have access to less storage.
For example, that Samsung Galaxy J2 sold in India for $112 USD or in the Philippines for $92 USD? That only carries 8GB worth of storage.
One way around this limited default size for many of these phones is the use of microSD cards. Essentially purchasers will add on memory to their smartphones by purchasing these microSDs to increase their storage size—but even this that has implications for digital product design. Storage to these cards can sometimes go wrong, cards can malfunction, as can the phone, and if the card is lost then there goes a slew of important information for the user. Including the app you built.
One important thing to note is that because of limited storage size, users will be much more conscious of what they allow to take up space on their phones. If an app is too bloated, update is too large, background activity too much or product not providing the value they sought out, then your product will be one of the first things deleted off that card. Even more so if your app takes too long to download, access to wifi for a download is limited or non-existent, or time to download is too long, resulting in cost back to the user in the form of data.
Design tip: if building an app, account for how large your packaged download will be. Then work to make it as small as possible. If designing an app for a device with limited space and processing speed, ensure your work uses only what’s necessary and strip out everything else that’s not worth it. Be mindful, and respectful, of the space you ask for on someone’s device. Google Play has a great article backing all of this up.
Future installments of this series will address user data limitations, the cultural usage of phones, and how tourism affects our interactions with devices. We’ll also look at sharing a construct to help you know where to start when it comes to designing digital products globally. Have any thoughts, tips or points you’d like to add to the conversation? Comment below!
