Indeed
Localizing product illustration for Indeed’s Indian users
In 2023 I partnered with Indeed’s IBU (International Business Unit) team to conceive and develop a system of localized illustrations for the Indian product space. At the time, Indeed’s brand illustration skewed towards US aesthetics and themes, and Indian product teams / users found that the product didn’t represent their needs.
With such a vast and diverse user base, my team and I strived to create a set of illustrations that represented the vibrancy of the market, and the diversity of its users. Working closely with Indian product teams and outside market research partners, I led a team of contract illustrators in developing what became Indeed’s Indian product illustration library.
The problem
Our current product illustrations didn’t fully represent the needs of / weren’t entirely relatable to Indian users. India-specific employment scenarios weren’t being represented, and depictions of people in our global illustration seemed to represent a largely American aesthetic.
Too simple too sterile
Our market research revealed a stark difference between the sparse, Swedish design of our US product and the more vibrant, bustling design sensibility in the Indian market.
Furthermore, Indian users preferred specificity in designs / illustrations, and desired more explicitly communicated next steps.
Cultural blindspots
Indeed’s Indian product serves a market with a large number of blue-collar and gig workers, whose interaction with finding jobs is a primarily mobile experience.
With an existing library that focused on desktop-based office work, we needed to diversify our portrayal of the jobs search.
Solutions
Drawing on insights from our semiotic study and a close partnership with Indian product teams, my team and I created a set of visuals and guidance for a bespoke Indian illustration system that centered a vibrant, human, mobile-first employment experience.
Aside from just depicting more Indian users, we also worked to build cultural insights into every part of the design, to create a system that is both authentically Indian and Indeedian.
Authentic portrayals
We took care to represent the job search authentically to everyday Indian employers and job seekers by creating illustrations that feature a diverse array gig work, as well as office jobs, and that centered the mobile experience.
We also made sure to portray a diverse set of characters, clothes, and environments, doing our best to capture the plurality of the market.
Vibrant transparency
We coalesced semiotic insights about Indian design, UI, and signage to bring more color and impact into our illustrations and product for this region. We drew from Indian architectural and pattern motifs to embellish background shapes, building familiar visual themes into our illustrations.
To ground all of this embellishment, we stuck to simple, clear, and accurate representations of product moments in our illustration to give users a trustworthy sense of their Indeed experience.