International Growth (Growth Design Monthly)

January 2023

Hi Readers,Languages beyond English offer tantalizing new growth markets. I was the sole product designer on the Internationalization Team at Quora from 2017-19. Part of the job was getting creative with problem solving because it was a small team with limited resources.. This case study breaks down how small changes in user interface can drastically fuel growth. Hope you get inspired! Best,Shakti MbQuora Alumni, Current Growth Designer at DoorDash 

The Internationalization Team

Quora is a Q&A platform on a mission to democratize knowledge. However, language can be a real barrier to accessing knowledge. Nearly 63% of the Web’s content is in English, but only 17% of the world speaks it. My team’s purpose was to facilitate knowledge-sharing in languages beyond English. The Internationalization Team also included two engineers, two data scientists, and two product managers. Team results during my tenure:

• Scaled the product from 4 to 27 languages. 

• 3x our non-English user base

• 3x engagement rate (time spent on the platform) 

This incredible growth was directly attributable to how quickly we could design and ship experiments. 

The Multilingual Opportunity

Our data scientists discovered that multilingual users were a key growth lever.  Users who consumed content in more than one language accounted for 80% of content creation in the non-English languages. If we acquired more multilingual users, we could further increase content created in non-English languages. One of our critical touchpoints for multilingual user growth was called the “Language Prompt” that asks users if they want to add another language to their Quora experience (see screenshot below). The prompt was shown to any user who had a high likelihood of speaking another language based on location, browser and device language. Our data scientists identified that even a slight increase in the prompt's conversion rate could drastically alter our growth trajectory in our international user base size. 

The Results

The Language Prompt experiments led to a 258% increase in conversion to switch languages, and a ~120% increase in time spent on the platform.The dynamics of how languages are spoken around the world are nuanced, sensitive, and complex; and software needs to reflect that. As designers, we have simple tools like copy and visual design to help address complexities and drive growth.In this case study, I shared about growth teams focused on internationalization, collaboration between design and data science and how small changes in user interface can drastically fuel growth by way of experiment design.

About the Author

Shakti Mb is a community facilitator and growth designer at DoorDash in NYC. She is an alumni of Automattic, Quora and Spotify.Bonus: You can chat with Shakti at the next Community Conversations event Feb 16.

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The newsletter is edited by Molly Norris Walker. Cover image includes art by Mosn and Sal.

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