Design-Led Initiative
Product Review Translation
Bridging the Language Gap to Make Better Product Decisions
What is Design-Led Initiative?
A Design-Led Initiative is a project where design leads the problem discovery and solution, driven by user insights.
Unlike regular projects that typically originate from the product roadmap or project manager requests.
Overview
As an expat living in Thailand, I often found it challenging to understand Thai-language product reviews on the Lazada app, which affected my confidence in making purchase decisions.
That experience sparked the idea for the Review Translation feature, which I proposed and led - now live on the app and scaling across five more Southeast Asian markets.
My Role
Sr. Product Designer
Year
2024
Platform
IOS, Android
Problems
The app does not
translate all contents even though language setting was English
90% of
Product reviews are THAI
Which makes sense for the local Thai market, but it creates friction for the expats who are living in Thailand and also foreign tourists shopping locally.
How to read product review which is written by Thai?
User have to screenshot and translate and read with Google Lens.
It's tedious, indeed.
The user have to translate one by one.
Data & Research
Insights
Research shows expats skip products without readable reviews, even if well-rated.
90% of product reviews on Thai listings are written in Thai.
Product Reviews are key to buying decisions - especially for unknown brands or sellers.
3-4 Millions
Expats working in Thailand
Thailand is home to approximately 3 to 4 million expatriate workers, with an average monthly income ranging from ฿60,000 to ฿200,000. Based on estimated data from Lazada, around 1.2 to 2 million users access the app in English - indicating that language accessibility directly impacts up to 2 million expatriate users.
Opportunity
How might we help Lazada buyers overcome language barriers in product reviews to make confident and informed purchase decisions?
Convince to PMs
& Product Management
Team
Usually, it's not easy to convince a Product Manager, especially when their roadmap is full.
But I successfully gained buy-in by framing the design-led initiative in their language - a low-effort, high-impact solution that addresses a real user pain point.
I backed it with clear data on user impact and potential business value. By presenting it as a quick win aligned with team goals, both the PM and their head agreed to move forward with the project.
Low-effort
High-impact
Quick win
Business Goals Alignment
Launched as
MVP
A small, smart addition: a "See translation" link inside the review section. Now, users just tap to instantly reveal the English version of any Thai review - no copy-paste, no leaving the app, no guesswork. Simple UX. Big user impact.
See translation
Result & Impact
Review dwell time (non-Thai users)
Conversion from English UI users
Uplift User feedback
+26.4%
+19%
+12.3%
Happy Buyers
Honestly, I just realized the review section actually relates to me now 😅.
It’s very convenient to read reviews with the translation feature.
Reading 1-star reviews from other buyers made it really easy to decide whether the product was good or not.
What is Next?
This is not a perfect solution yet.
Ideally, all content should be automatically translated when the app language setting is changed.
However, for now, we’ll prioritize rolling out to other countries that require translation.
After that, we’ll focus on fully automating content translation when users switch the app’s language.
That would be "Next Step".
Final Thought 💭
Good design solves real problems.
Great design solves problems no one else has noticed - yet.
This was one of them.