How to design great products for Southeast Asia Concluded

“There are different product needs: Governments, regulations, languages, currencies, education, and tech literacy, among other things,” said Jay Demetillo, a Grab alumni, during his “Designing products for SEA region” workshop at Product Development Conference 2021.

At the time, Demetillo was Grab’s lead UX and visual designer for the trust, identity, safety, and security team. And prior to that, he had served in the same role for GrabFood for two years.

Designing a great product or feature for Southeast Asia entails being as inclusive as possible. Demetillo likened this to building a bridge over a canyon – a tightrope might get the job done, but building a whole bridge would ensure that everyone has equal access to your product.

Photo credit: Jay Demetillo

To make sure a product’s design is inclusive, companies need to focus on the customer’s journey and habits.

“You need to build off and learn from customers in general,” Demetillo explained.

For example, Demetillo and his team spoke with customers and found that some people liked getting personal recommendations from restaurant staff to help them decide what to eat. Giving what the users want, Grab added this as a feature.

When it comes to cultural diversity in the region, hyperlocalization is the name of the game, said Demetillo.

Due to poor traffic, Indonesians prefer ordering from somewhere closer to them, for example. That’s why Grab made the carousel listing restaurants closest to the customer appear higher up on its Indonesian homepage.

That said, great design also means successfully working around limitations – and with the sheer diversity within the region, there’s a lot of those.

Because of all the different currencies and languages, the same text copy can have wildly differing designs after being translated and localized. As such, it’s important to set character counts or line limits for each language, said Demetillo. This ensures that things like buttons and descriptions are not just readable but also can be understood clearly.

To that end, having a good content writer for each market is a great help.

“Content is so important, and having someone to edit that content changes the experience,” Demetillo said.

Throughout all this, one thing becomes clear: Great product development isn’t just about being good at one thing. You have to consider every single aspect and focus on it down to the tiniest detail if needed.

It’s hard. But you can learn from product practitioners who have made the mistakes and walked the path.

That’s why Tech in Asia hosts an annual Product Development Conference (PDC), covering a wide range of topics related to building great products. Sessions by Demetillo are just an example of what you can expect this year too.

So if you’re looking for in-depth, specific insights about how to build great products – whether it’s for the region or for a specific vertical – drop by PDC 2023.