Cross-Cultural Design intensive
Frank Spillers
Global Design leader with 25+ years
Designing for culture prevents global UX failure.
Most global products fail quietly.
Not from bad UX. From cultural mismatch.
Teams translate words.
They miss meaning, norms, and trust signals.
Users feel it instantly.
Confusion. Friction. Drop-off.
This course fixes that gap.
You learn how culture shapes behavior, expectations, and decisions.
You spot hidden bias baked into layouts, flows, and tone.
You stop guessing when to localize.
You make clear, defensible decisions.
You work better with localization teams.
You add UX value, not rework.
You reduce adoption risk across regions.
You design experiences people actually accept and use.
This course matters because global UX is now default.
And cultural failure is expensive.
What you’ll learn
How to see culture in design decisions. How to detect cultural bias early. How to design with cultural intelligence.
Cultural touchpoint checklist
Bias-detection framework
Real localization failure cases
Localize vs. standardize matrix
Strategy canvas for global products
Decision patterns from live examples
Global persona template
Layout and content adaptation demos
Equity, culturability and accessibility lenses
Translation vs. transcreation toolkit
Content and interaction patterns by culture
AI translation guardrails
Remote and in-country research playbooks
Testing protocols across cultures
Recruitment and ethics guidance
Working with the Agile localization stack
UX and Loc handoffs, role and process
Cross-team collaboration practices
Learn directly from Frank
Frank Spillers
Design leader with 25+ years delivering cross-cultural UX for global teams.
Who this course is for
UX and Product Designers working across regions
Service Designers in global or public sector teams
Content Designers handling multilingual UX
Localization and Internationalization specialists
UX Researchers running global studies
Product Managers shipping to multiple markets
Design Leads scaling products globally
AI and Platform teams using translation or LLM tools
Prerequisites
Best fit if you:
Design for users outside your home culture or Rely on translation, not UX adaptation or See adoption drop after global launch.
Not a fit if you:
Only design for one local market or Focus purely on copy translation or Want theory without practice.
What's included
Live sessions
Learn directly from Frank Spillers in a real-time, interactive format.
Clear frameworks for cross-cultural UX decisions
Practical tools, not abstract theory
Real localization failure case studies
Use a Global Research toolkit and persona templates
Translation vs. transcreation clarity
Move beyond words and into cultural context shaping
Agile localization workflows that scale
Get familiar with Agile Localization UX best practices
Cultural bias detection in layouts and content
Learn when to make it fit and when to break the "standards"
Safe use of AI and LLM translation
Guardrail against the number 1 culprit: cultural bias
Reduced global launch and adoption risk
Build in culturability and learn how to measure your effectivness
Maven Guarantee
This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund up until the halfway point of the course.
Course syllabus
Week 1
Jan
16
Session 1: Culture, Bias, and UX Localization Foundations
Week 2
Jan
23
Session 2: Designing for Global Audiences
Schedule
Live sessions
2 hrs / week
Fri, Jan 16
5:00 PM—7:00 PM (UTC)
Fri, Jan 23
5:00 PM—7:00 PM (UTC)
Fri, Jan 30
5:00 PM—7:00 PM (UTC)
Projects
1-2 hrs / week
Cultural Bias Audit -develop strategic localization thinking
Async content
1-2 hrs / week
Review toolkit material and recordings
Frequently asked questions
$399
USD