Skyscanner is used by a whopping 100 million global users every month. Our website and app are available in 37 different languages across 70 markets, with over 70% of our users coming from markets where English isn’t their first language.

Because of this, our Localisation experts sit in the Product Design team as we know how important it is to include them throughout the end-to-end product development flow. We want each user to feel as though the product was developed for them.

What is localisation?

Localisation is the practice of growing a global audience by adapting a product’s experience to be linguistically relevant, culturally appropriate, legally compliant, and globally scalable.

Localisation is often confused with translation, which is the process of conveying the same meaning of a written text from a source language into one or more target languages – that’s just one part of localisation.

What we can do

Consider linguistic and cultural nuances

Be mindful of linguistic and cultural differences when designing content and new features, and be flexible for local adaptations. Grammar rules, alphabets, word order and content length can vary from language to language, and even from country to country where the same language is spoken (what works in the UK doesn’t always work for the US!).

Gather market-specific insights

Languages and cultures have very different needs for digital products. Insights, audits and market research are essential to understand our audiences and how to best communicate with them. Get in touch on the #localisation channel to chat!

Involve the localisation team early on

Test initial iterations of designs with other languages to avoid any challenges and include the Localisation team as early as possible with the project.

Got a question?

Drop the team a message in #localisation and they'll be happy to help.