Quick Reference Guide for Localization at Wayfair
case study
Problem
Design, product, and engineering teams at Wayfair lacked alignment on locale-specific localization nuance. This caused inconsistency across user experiences and sometimes incorrect information all together. For example, Irish customers would be led to believe a backorder was for September 5 instead of May 9 when date formats were coded incorrectly.
Why it mattered
Consistency eliminates ambiguity for end-users and allows systems to communicate with one another. Inconsistency creates confusion, erodes brand credibility, and increases time to market.
Inefficiencies in launching new markets were compounding:
- There were recurrent questions in slack channels asking for the same information. Sometimes, this information had not been defined for a specific locale.
- Each engineering team used different localization libraries.
- Brand guidelines did not fully adhere to any single localization library or standard.
- Information was scattered throughout the guides and impossible to find for English-speaking engineers and designers.
Solution and impact
I created a framework and led the development of a quick reference guide for internationalization and localization details for each country and language (locale) Wayfair supports. The resource was used by design, content, product, and engineering teams to customize their specific libraries and design systems when a new locale is introduced.
Information for the guide was gathered from Wayfair’s language style guides and common standards. The guide includes information, formats, patterns, and standards by country and language for (but not limited to):
- Native country and language spellings
- Locale codes
- Supported audiences
- Number and pricing formats
- Currency
- Dates
- Times
- Phone numbers
- Address and postal codes
- Units of measurement
- Local contact information and hours of operation for customers and suppliers
Updating the quick reference guide is now part of the initial product development playbook for new locales. Completing and publishing this information at the beginning of new locale discovery work will help product, engineering, and design teams launch new locales and features more efficiently.
My roles and process
- Project lead
- Content strategist
- Localization strategist
- Workshop facilitator
- User researcher
- User experience
This cross-domain project required a significant understanding of the engineering localization process across multiple teams, as well as a deep understanding of general localization needs for end users.
| Design step | Process task |
| Empathize | I interviewed internal stakeholders in engineering, product management, localization, and design as well as end-users in non-US locales (customer and supplier). |
| Define | I defined localizable elements to be included and circulated the elements to stakeholders for feedback. |
| Ideate | I facilitated a workshop to finalize details and consider the best ways to communicate information to users. The workshop included engineers, design systems leads, product managers, designers, and localization leads. |
| Prototype | I created an Airtable database of localizable elements with customized views per role. I collaborated with language leads and engineers to populate the database per locale. |
| Test | I launched an MVP version of the database with several feature teams to test and revise before launching a functional database. |
