The Sunday Draft

As a product manager, I’ve always found myself leaning towards the design table—not just in the ‘how it works,’ but deeply in the ‘how it feels.’

In this article, I’m sharing some of the nuanced design considerations that I utilized while building products for users across borders—where formats shift, expectations differ, and empathy became my strongest tool.

For most companies, the ambition to “go global” shows up in a roadmap slide long before it shows up in the product.

And that’s where the disconnect begins.

International product design isn’t about flipping a language switch or plugging in a currency API. It’s a deep, deliberate practice – rooted in empathy, cultural intelligence, and relentless execution across UX, compliance, and operations. If you’ve led international products in regulated domains like payments or trade, you already know: what looks like a design problem is often a system problem in disguise.

But it’s solvable – when you build with intention.

The Realities of Building for Global Users

When your users span time zones, currencies, and compliance regimes, your product becomes more than just a tool. It becomes:

• A translator
• A guide
• A source of trust

And that trust can break down fast when:

• Taxonomies reflect HQ logic, not local mental models – A trade finance platform might list “NAFTA” instead of the now-relevant USMCA, confusing LATAM users navigating real legal documents. Misaligned terminology undermines credibility.
• Country pickers ignore geopolitical nuance – Dropdowns listing “Taiwan, Province of China” or outdated country names may alienate users or even introduce compliance risk. A single careless label can escalate into a PR or a UX disaster (or both, if you are really unlucky!)
• Forms break under name and script diversity – Fields rejecting spaces or special characters exclude legitimate names in Arabic, Tamil, or Nigerian naming systems – leading to KYC rejections and user churn for reasons that feel personal.
• Visual hierarchy mismatches user behavior – In mobile-first, low-literacy markets, dense “Learn More” links underplay key actions. Successful FinTechs like GPay India, embraced visual-first, tap-based UX that fits regional norms.
• Error states rely on Western idioms – Messages like “Oops! Something went wrong” may sound friendly in English but leave non-native speakers confused or anxious—especially in high-stakes actions like money transfer or ID verification.

These aren’t edge cases – these are core UX gaps that signal whether your product truly understands its users, or just translates over them.

UI that Makes a Product Truly Global

Beyond content, global UI design demands structural flexibility. For example:

• Layout mirroring for right-to-left languages
• Local date and number formats (e.g., 03/05/2025 means May 3rd in the U.S., but March 5th in Europe)
• Dynamic form logic that hides irrelevant inputs and adjusts based on region-specific KYC or tax rules
• Color and icon conventions that vary by culture (e.g., red for errors in the West, but celebration in China)

These aren’t polish-layer decisions. They’re foundational. And they can’t be bolted on after launch.

Case in Point 1: Cross-Border Payments

Let’s take an example that seems simple, but is anything but: sending money across countries.

You’re dealing with:

• Variable regulations in each corridor
• Currency volatility and FX spreads
• User anxiety over transfer delays
• Different levels of financial literacy

Now add to that the need for:

• Seamless onboarding (KYC flows that flex by country)
• Real-time fee and rate transparency
• Support in multiple languages and currencies
• Mobile-first experiences (especially for remittance-heavy markets)

Companies like Wise and Revolut didn’t just succeed by moving money – they succeeded by designing confidence into every interaction. That’s the bar.

Case in Point 2: Trade Finance Platforms

At the other end of the spectrum, there’s B2B trade. If you’ve ever worked on digital trade finance, you know these platforms handle:

• Letters of credit and guarantees
• Document negotiation across banks and exporters
• Complex workflows with high compliance stakes

And yet, many of these tools are still built on outdated paradigms – clunky portals, overloaded interfaces, and compliance processes that feel like legal minefields.

Here’s where international design can, atleast, start to move the needle:

• Smart defaults for compliance – Compliance doesn’t have to mean complexity. Smart defaults simplify legal-heavy flows by pre-filling fields, auto-surfacing required documents based on geography, and guiding users with country-aware prompts. Example: An exporter in Vietnam sending goods to the EU should automatically see a checklist tailored to EU customs – not a 30 page PDF meant for every market.
• Role-aware access control – A Relationship Manager at a bank doesn’t need the same interface as a shipping coordinator or a compliance analyst. Each role should get a streamlined view tailored to their scope and responsibilities. This prevents confusion, limits errors, and boosts trust across distributed teams – especially when working across borders and time zones.

These aren’t just design enhancements – these are strategic levers. They reduce friction, build trust, and make digital trade systems feel less like bureaucratic gates and more like enablers of global commerce.

Many International Fintechs are already incorporating design as part of their strategy.

• Stripe Atlas for example adjusts entity formation requirements based on founder location, providing in-context prompts for U.S. vs. non-U.S. tax and banking forms.
• Tradeshift for example uses permission-based UIs to show logistics partners only the docs they need (e.g. bill of lading)—not payment terms or financial approvals.

Looking Forward: Design as a Strategic Lever

As AI enables personalized UX at scale, and as emerging markets lead the next wave of growth, the strategic importance of international product design will only increase.

Here’s what I believe:

• The next 100 million users will come from markets your team hasn’t designed for yet.
• The fastest-growing businesses will be the ones who build for inclusivity by default.
• Design won’t just shape the product—it’ll shape the perception of your brand in every market.

Final Thought

What excites me most about designing for a global audience isn’t just scale —

It’s the small, intentional choices that make someone halfway across the world feel like the product was built for them.

It’s when a user in Japan completes onboarding smoothly – not because we translated it, but because we accounted for the formality of name order, the use of Kanji, and local address formatting.

Or, when a trader in Vietnam gets the exact compliance documents they need – not buried in jargon, but surfaced clearly in Vietnamese, aligned to how local export workflows actually operate.

Or when a shopper in China can use Alipay or WeChat Pay without needing to hunt for the option under a “credit card” label.

That’s the kind of “global” I want to build more of. Not louder, faster, broader. But more thoughtful. More local. More real

Because when we get it right, we’re not just shipping features – we’re earning trust in places we may never visit, from people we may never meet.

And that, to me, is the real privilege of product design