In the previous article about international UX we focused on non-native English speakers, now it’s time to take a look at The United States of America and as usually we will compare them to other countries.
You might think that web UX in the U.S. is pretty much the same as in all other English-speaking western countries except for metric system. Well… stick with me for a while and you will know lots of cool facts to share with your nerdy friends on a Friday night.
Dates And Time
Monday is canceled
Yes, the week in the U.S. starts from Sunday.
No, it’s not a working day as in Israel.
Yes, Sunday is still called a weekend (the end of a standard “workweek”).
No, we not gonna fight because of that.
Bonus: in Portuguese Monday can be translated as “second” (segundo), while in Russian Tuesday is “second” (vtoroy).
In many Muslim countries Friday is a big holiday because of Jumu’ah pray so a week starts from Saturday while people start working from Sunday.
Middle, small, big
While most countries write day or year in the beginning of a date, in the U.S. month goes first. And slash is used instead of a period.
So the first day of July is:
7/1/17 in the U.S.
01/07/2017 in Brazil
01.07.2017 in Greece (most common format across the world)
2017.07.01 in China
Bonus: Today is Jun 3 ’17 (one more very common U.S. way to write dates)
From duck till dawn
In the U.S. time is money, so people cannot afford to have 24 hours in one day. Instead the day is divided into two parts: AM and PM with 12 hours in each.
I have a question for non-US readers:
What goes after 11pm? (e.g. 10pm, 11pm, X, 1am, 2am)
For experiment purpose please leave your answer in the comments.
Not standard time
While most countries use cities to represent certain time zones, in the U.S. there are unique names and abbreviations for each of 9 time zones. Here are the most common ones:
EST — Eastern Standard Time
CST — Central Standard Time
MST — Mountain Standard Time
PST — Pacific Standard Time
New Year without fireworks
And finally, a new fiscal year in the U.S. starts from October, not from January as it logically should. It’s hardly connected to UX, but worth mentioning from business stand point.
Numbers And Money
Numbers dot com
Using dots (periods) and commas in numbers differs from country to country. In the U.S. commas are often used in large numbers after every three digits to the left of the decimal point to help users read the number easier.
So one million will be:
1,000,000.00 in the U.S.
1.000.000,00 in Germany
1 000 000,00 in Russia
10,00,000.00 in India
I only call you when it’s half past five
The U.S. (and Canada) have the simplest country code in the world +1. And you don’t even have to use trunk code, so you can just dial 555–555–5555 while being inside the country.
Bonus: you can find many different formats across the world for writing numbers using dashes, brackets and spaces. But nowadays in the U.S. it’s pretty common to use even periods, e.g. 520.555.5555 or (512) 333.0000
Twelve bunches of bananas
In the U.S. is common to count hundreds (2 zeros) as thousands (3 zeros), millions (6 zeros), billions (9 zeros), etc. However, it’s only used from 1,100 to 9,900 so people will usually say “11 hundred”, but they won’t say “10 hundred”. And btw don’t put “s” at the end of “hundred”. At first it might be really confusing for non-US person, but slowly you will get used to that.
And keep in mind that “one thousand one hundred” is still a more formal way.
I’m not sure where this tradition came from. Probably because of the largest dollar bill of $100 or to make phrases sound shorter (“eleven hundred” instead of “one thousand one hundred”).
Bonus: the U.S. are not unique here and other countries also use similar practices with numbers like 10,000 or 100,000.
In China 10,000 is 万 which is commonly used in real estate prices.
In India 100,000 is 1 lakh (lac) so you will often see on job boards salaries like 15.50 lacs.
Now tell me fast how much is 15.50 lacs?
Was it easy to process?
I bet it was a bit confusing and took you more time. Well, this is why some non-US people are a bit slow when they hear “58 hundred” or “1 million 5 hundred thousand”. They just don’t use these sets of digits to process numbers.
Btw I wrote this article in twenty seventeen (stands for 20 hundred 17).
Show me the money
Dollar sign goes before the price as well as some other currency signs like British Pounds, Indian Rupees, Japanese Yens, etc., but keep in mind that in many countries the currency sign goes after the price.
Much more money
Most countries use monthly representation of a salary, while in the U.S. the most common is annual salary. So senior developers in the U.S. make $120,000 while their colleagues in Ukraine make $2,000.
Bonus: in some countries like India both monthly and annual salary representations can be used.
It’s actually a common UX problem on international job boarders, but we have been already talking about it in the previous article about international UX.
Metric system
And of course, don’t forget to convert all your units of measurement, because United States have not adopted the metric system, yet. Although in some fields like military, science and engineering a metric system is being used.
Bonus: in India people often use “feet” to measure height. It probably came from a cricket which is the most popular sport game in India. Cricket was brought there by British who officially used to use “feet” until 1970’s. Please let me know if you have different theories.
Traditions And Laws
Sun is shining
While many Asian countries are full of swastikas, in the U.S. as well as in all Western World swastika is mainly a symbol of hate and racism due to Nazi influence.
There were already many confusions on this topic and once in awhile some goods are being withdrawn from western shelves back to Asia for containing swastikas.
It’s very important to raise awareness of both cultures.
You shouldn't use swastika on your products (goods, web design, stickers, emoji) in Western World.
On the other hand, westerns should be aware that swastika is an ancient religious symbol that is still being widely used by Hindus and Buddhists. The symbol represents sun, good luck, success and in most Asian countries it has nothing to do with the Third Reich.
I’m legal
The U.S. have lots of strict regulations comparative to other developing countries. The Web is not an exception, so you literally should have a layer just to make sure that you don’t break any law, because each state can have their own regulations which you should also comply.
But even though the governments and big corporations are constantly trying to restrict the privacy and the freedom in the Internet, the U.S. users can still freely surf the web without VPN unlike people in some other big countries.
For example LinkedIn is blocked in Russia, Vkontakte is banned in Ukraine, Facebook and Youtube are blocked in China and Iran, and thousands of small websites and banned in India.
There are no banned IT products in the U.S. because of a few main reasons:
- Most big IT companies are American-based so there is less politics involved. #Kaspersky
- There are many highly pro-active communities that fight for the freedom of speech and human rights. #NetNeutrality
Bonus: EU-based websites can be fined for not using a cookie warning as shown above.
Indian wall clock
Web UX is such a huge topic and the bigger your platform, the more details you should be taking care of in order to have a competitive product, especially on the international market.
Otherwise you will end up with a clock which looks like this.
By the way, what’s the time?
Sure?
If you want more interesting facts:
- read this article to know in which country Huawei means a penis,
- learn why you shouldn’t scan two-factor authentication QR codes,
- or check out my YouTube UX course to pimp your landing page.
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