UX/UI Design
Design for Chinese Users. Not Just Chinese Language.
We build WordPress experiences that actually feel native to users in China. Culturally relevant, mobile-first, and shaped around the platforms and habits that run China's internet.
Good design back home. Broken in China.
We see this all the time. A company puts real effort into their WordPress site, gets it running well, good conversion rate back home. Then they launch it in China. Bounce rates go through the roof, nobody's engaging, leads dry up. The site looks fine technically. But something about it just feels wrong to anyone actually browsing from Shanghai or Chengdu.
What's going on is pretty simple once you've seen it enough times. Chinese internet users didn't grow up on the same web you did. Everything from how they navigate a page to how much information they expect to see at once, it's all been shaped by platforms like WeChat, Taobao, and Douyin. Not by Google and Amazon.
A design language that converts in Chicago doesn't automatically work in Chongqing. That's the gap we fill. Your brand stays globally consistent but the on-the-ground experience feels like it was made for China. Because it was.
What We Offer
What we actually deliver
From initial research through to validated design systems, every deliverable is built for how Chinese users actually behave online.
UX Research and User Insights
Mockups come later. First we need to understand who's going to use your site and how they'll find it in the first place. We look at how your specific audience navigates content in China, we benchmark your competitors (the local Chinese ones and the international brands chasing the same market), and we map out user journeys that begin where people in China actually begin: scrolling Douyin, reading a WeChat article, or typing something into Baidu. And we build everything mobile-first. Not as a nice-to-have, but because 70%+ of internet usage in China is on phones. Screen sizes, default browsers, OS versions... all different from what most Western design teams are testing on.
Information Architecture
One thing that surprises a lot of our clients: Chinese audiences actually prefer denser pages. More links visible, more text, more options upfront. To Western eyes it can look cluttered but to someone in Beijing, a page with tons of whitespace and minimal content often reads as empty. Or like you're hiding something. So we spend real time on content hierarchy and page structure. Wireframes follow local navigation patterns and give visitors the depth they're looking for, without making the page unreadable for the team back at HQ who also needs to sign off on it.
Visual Design
This is where things get really specific. Mobile-first layouts built for devices people in China are actually using. Colour carries serious symbolic weight here. Red means luck and prosperity, white is associated with mourning. Typography needs to handle Chinese characters properly and not treat them like an afterthought. Imagery matters too, local audiences can tell immediately when stock photos weren't chosen with them in mind. Trust signals are a big one: QR codes for WeChat, business licence badges, ICP filing numbers, live chat widgets, customer service numbers. Chinese consumers actively look for these things before they'll take any action on your site. Leave them out and you've already lost credibility. Mockups delivered in Figma, pixel-perfect, ready for the dev team.
Gutenberg-Native Design System
We design inside WordPress's Gutenberg editor directly. Custom blocks your content team can use without needing a developer every time a page needs updating. Components that keep things visually consistent across the whole site. And templates built so that non-technical people on your team can handle routine content changes themselves.
How We Work
Our process
Every project follows the same structure. It keeps things predictable for your team and makes sure nothing gets missed.
Discovery and Briefing
Get aligned on brand guidelines, goals, who you're trying to reach in China. We go through what you've already got and figure out what needs to change.
Research and Benchmarking
Your competitive landscape in China, local user patterns, design principles for the project. This is the homework phase.
Wireframing
Page structure, layouts, user flows. All of it checked against how Chinese users actually expect sites to work before we touch visual design. Way cheaper to rework a wireframe than a polished mockup.
Visual Design and Iteration
High-fidelity mockups, feedback rounds, revisions. We keep going until it works for your global brand and performs in the Chinese market.
Design System and Handoff
Components, style guidelines, interaction specs, all packaged up so your dev team can build without guessing.
QA and Validation
We test on Chinese browsers and devices. Not just Chrome. A site that looks great in your browser in London can completely fall apart on UC Browser or QQ Browser, and those two still carry a lot of mobile traffic in China.
Key Insights
What we've learned about designing for China
Mobile is the whole game here. Not a secondary consideration. Every single design decision starts with the phone screen, because that's where the overwhelming majority of your audience is.
Dense pages perform better than sparse ones. Western designers instinctively strip things back, but in China, information density is actually a trust signal. An empty-looking page makes people suspicious.
Skip social integration at your own risk. WeChat QR codes, sharing buttons, mini-program links. If these aren't on your site you're basically invisible in the channels where Chinese consumers spend their time.
Page speed is a design choice, not just a tech problem. Every image, animation, and font file gets optimised for China's network conditions. An 8-second load time on China Mobile kills everything else you've built.
People verify before they trust. Business licences, certifications, real customer testimonials, a visible phone number or chat option. Chinese consumers check for these things. We design them in from day one, not as something bolted on at the end.
Who This Is For
Who should be reading this
You're building a WordPress site for China and you want to get the design right from the start.
You already have a site live in China but it's not performing and you think the design might be the issue.
Your marketing team is planning a campaign targeting Chinese consumers and needs pages that don't feel like they were just translated from English.
You've got a solid global design system and you need someone who actually understands how to adapt it for China without wrecking it.
Let's Talk
Design for China isn't about making things look nice
It's about whether people actually use the thing you built. If that sounds like a conversation worth having, we should talk.