Geo-Redirect
How might we strategically place friction to encourage users to select the correct locale when they are on a different region’s site?
UX Strategy
UX Research
Usability Testing
Animation above reflects geo-redirect observed on asos.com.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAYS
Early frustration is less harmful than frustration later in the pipeline.
Most users expect their IP address to be tracked and their locale auto-selected.
Less freedom = more clarity.
Minimize the work of the user.
OVERVIEW
In today’s digital landscape, users can effortlessly browse and shop from international retailers. While it is often intentional, it can also happen without the knowledge of the user. This global accessibility presents a unique UX challenge: how to clearly communicate country-specific restrictions without disrupting the overall shopping experience. The key lies in designing intentional, strategic friction—creating just enough resistance to guide users appropriately, while still maintaining a smooth and enjoyable journey.
OBJECTIVE
How might we design a UX solution that clearly alerts users when they're on the wrong regional site, while minimizing disruption and strategically guiding them to select the correct locale?
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
🗺️ GUIDING QUESTIONS
Several questions came to mind as we sought to find the perfect balance.
1. Where should a notification or geography selection icon be placed?
2. What should it look like?
3. How aggressive should it be?
4. Should it be dismissible, or not dismissible until users end up on the correct site?
To begin, we began by pulling insights from Baymard. We then went into a benchmarking session, followed by a usability test intending to capture user behaviors on common designs used widely across the web.
PROCESS / RESEARCH
🎨 USABILITY TEST DESIGN
We needed to determine the format of the notification: should it display all available region options, or just the recommended one based on IP address? Additionally, we needed to decide just how intrusive the notification should be, and at what point in the journey.
With this test specifically, I wanted to answer these specific questions: What is the right level of friction? How can we be clear and informative without being disruptive? Should users choose their region manually, or should we recommend one?
SYNTHESIS / FINDINGS
💭 INSIGHTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Friction > Frustration. Users would rather be inconvenienced sooner rather than later. Surprisingly, even when faced with a landing page that actively required a region selector before they were permitted entry into the site, there was an overwhelmingly positive sentiment.
💡 Recommendation: Ensure that the location is displayed in a conspicuous manner. Either have a required verification step to begin with (similar to Louis Vuitton's approach), or double check with the IP address and provide a clear notification that the locale may be incorrect.
User assumptions consider IP tracking. One participant stated, "Honestly, when I was on the website, I didn’t really look at the region. It’s usually automatically my region so when it wasn’t, I didn’t even think to look."
💡 Recommendation: The majority of users do not confirm their addresses before they begin browsing. If at any point users are redirected to, or happen to land on a foreign page, users should be given a clear path to their correct region.
Less freedom = more clarity. When changing regions required anything beyond selecting a new region (a Confirm button or closing of a modal, for example), this caused confusion.
💡 Recommendation: Avoid the use of a Confirm or Continue button and keep the selector as simple as possible.
Conspicuous notifications are essential. Oftentimes, users begin their journey with their gaze towards the top of the page close to the menu rather than the bottom. We found that anchoring the notification at the bottom caused a delay in users noticing the notification.
💡 Recommendation: Place the notification in the line of sight where a users’ vision naturally follows. In addition, drawing more attention to the notification (ie - graying out the rest of the site) can provide more contrast.
Minimize the work for the user. Users were overwhelmed with the options when presented with a complete list of available regions to select from.
💡 Recommendation: Rather than giving the user a complete list of regions to select from, provide a specific country to switch to if they are not already in the correct region.
CONCLUSION / FUTURE WORK
🪞 REFLECTION
As referral links, exclusive products, and global eCommerce become more prevalent, the challenge of keeping users on the correct locale continues to grow. Several insights from our research were unexpected. The most surprising was that, contrary to prior assumptions, users didn’t favor what I thought was a privacy-respecting approach — avoiding automatic locale selection. In fact, nearly all the users from the study preferred companies to use this type of data to streamline their online experience.
These insights have been shared with our product designer to help guide the design process.
👩🏻💻
Irene J. Kim