From Signals to Strategy: Guiding Localization Priorities in GenAI-Driven Products

Project Objectives

The research aimed to explore how language and localization impact the customer journey across the client’s digital assets, including their marketing website, technical documentation, and cloud management portal. The findings were intended to guide incremental improvements to enhance the customer experience, improve accessibility, and drive higher adoption rates.

To achieve this, our UX research team established the following key objectives:

• Evaluate how well the localized content resonates with native speakers and assess its naturalness and cultural relevance.

• Understand how users organically navigate the website and evaluate their overall experience across different touchpoints.

• Prioritize key digital assets based on feedback from diverse user groups, including new and existing customers, business and technical users, and native speakers of the target languages.

• Gather actionable recommendations and insights to help the client refine their localization efforts and improve the global customer experience.

Research Process

Research Methodologies

To gain a deeper understanding of user behavior and preferences, we employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods. Using surveys and interviews, we gathered valuable insights into user behaviors, attitudes, and needs. Specifically, we conducted 100 moderated interview sessions with native-speaking users (10 users per language across 10 languages) and collected 260 survey responses (20 per language across 13 languages). The surveys provided quantitative data on user actions and opinions, while the interviews offered rich, contextual insights, capturing nuanced feedback that surveys alone could not reveal.

All analysis across both the survey and interviews focused on five main themes:

·       Language: Quality of translation in native language

·       Terminology: Accessibility of technical vocabulary used to describe system features and capabilities

·       Content: Comprehensiveness/completeness of available material

·       Navigation: Ability to find information

·       Tone: General character or attitude of the messaging

These themes were selected as they lend themselves to the customer journey as well as address the overlap language has with the other variables that affect the customer experience.

Analysis & Synthesis

With the data collected from surveys and interviews, we organized and synthesized the information by mapping it on a virtual collaboration board. This approach allowed us to identify key patterns, insights, and themes effectively.

After reviewing the collected data, we analyzed the users and categorized them into groups based on their goals, behaviors, and other relevant factors. This approach allowed us to consolidate these groups into three distinct personas, each representing a unique journey and experience on the website.

Through our analysis of the surveys and interviews, we identified three key user types, each representing distinct user behaviors and characteristics. These personas were developed by examining common tasks, how users interact with different areas of the website, and the languages they use for their specific roles.

Sebastien, Nicole, and Charles are representative of these user types:

• Learners and Doers: Users who focus on building and engineering cloud capabilities.

• Business Decision Makers: Users working in sales, consulting, or leadership positions.

• Connectors and Builders: Users who embody both roles, responsible for educating, strategizing, and guiding clients and teams.

Each persona reflects a unique journey and experience on the website, offering valuable insights for improving localization and user experience.

We created detailed journey maps for each persona, highlighting their typical approaches and steps when navigating the website. These maps outline the pages they frequently visit, as well as the positive and negative aspects of their experiences, providing a clear view of their overall user journey and helping to identify areas for improvement in localization and user experience.

Here is an example of the more detailed and comprehensive journey maps we developed for each user type. These in-depth maps outline the steps users take to achieve their goals, along with their thoughts and feelings at various stages of the journey. We also tracked instances where users switched between English and their native language, which provided valuable insights into language preferences and how each language contributes to task completion. This visualization helped us gain a deeper understanding of the nuanced user experience, highlighting areas where localization improvements could enhance usability and overall satisfaction.

As we synthesized the survey and interview data through the lens of our five key pillars—navigation, language, content, terminology, and tone—we identified three overarching user needs through affinity mapping. These needs focused on:

• Accessible guidance: Users seek clearer, more easily accessible instructions and support.

• Consistent language: Users prefer a consistent use of language throughout their journey.

• Streamlined experience: Users desire a more efficient and intuitive experience with fewer obstacles.

These insights highlighted critical areas for enhancing the user experience and informed our recommendations for improving website localization and user interaction.

The first theme, "meet me where I am," highlights the complexity and overwhelming nature of the website’s content, making it challenging for users with diverse abilities. Users emphasized the need for more intuitive and accessible guidance that aligns with their individual skill levels.

The second theme, "elevate my confidence," focuses on issues related to inconsistent language and navigation. Users expressed confusion over language selection while navigating, calling for a more uniform and clear communication style across the site to manage expectations throughout their journey.

The final theme, "reduce my mental labor," addresses frustrations related to untranslated pages, unclear technical terms, and difficulties in finding information. Users stressed the importance of simplifying the language-switching process to improve overall user experience.

These three key themes were further broken down into subcategories with specific directives to improve the user experience. We gathered concrete examples to support these insights and identified opportunities for improvement through targeted “how might we” questions. In the end, we recommended key areas to prioritize in order to enhance the overall customer experience with Amazon Web Services.

Outcome and Engagement Impact

While the direct impact of our findings on localization quality is still being assessed, one of the most significant results of this project has been the strengthening of our partnership with the client. The insights gathered have laid the foundation for continued collaboration, and our client is now actively engaging with us on a quarterly basis to assess customer satisfaction with their localization efforts.

• Quarterly Quantitative Research: We are now conducting quarterly surveys to track customer satisfaction with the client’s evolving localization strategies. This effort will provide ongoing, data-driven insights that will guide continuous improvements in their customer experience across global markets.

• Building a Data-Driven Strategy: The feedback from our initial research and the ongoing quarterly assessments are enabling us to help the client develop a more data-driven localization strategy, ensuring that their future content resonates with international customers.

Client Testimonials