WeChat Redesign for Foreigners Living in China from Culturally Adaptive Design Perspective

Abstract

As an approach of human-centered design, the culturally adaptive design is flexible to integrate cultural specific attributes into design thinking. This study chooses WeChat to exemplify how to resign from a culturally adaptive view. WeChat has become a universal social media tool in the Chinese market, with 960 million users. However, the lack of culture adaption in interaction interfaces results in some usability problems for foreigners. To be globally accepted, the design should adapt to different users’ cultural preferences. In this paper, we conducted a systematic research focusing on incorporating cultural factors, and Human-Computer Interaction factors into mobile interface design. It consists of five main steps include data collection, problem definition, ideation, prototype implementation, and evaluation. The statistical evaluation metrics of evaluation illustrates that interfaces that accommodate culture can significantly increase the user experience. The design process also provides deep insights into how WeChat can improve its interaction ways, which will enhance foreigners’ satisfaction and their future usage intentions.