Here’s a new article I’ve written for UX Magazine on the importance of aligning global and mobile strategies. Too often, companies develop mobile apps and mobile websites without considering localization requirements.
Here are two previous articles I’ve written for UX Magazine:
- Select Country; Select Language: Developing a User-Friendly Global Gateway
- Global by Design: Creating a World-Ready Web Design
I was happy to see that Philips launched a new (and improved) global gateway recently.
Below is a screen grab of the old gateway, as seen on the home page:
The menu was well positioned in the upper right corner, but it was a LONG menu.
And the use of flags was problematic for many reasons, such as adding a great deal of overhead to every single web page. (Here are a few previous thoughts on flags)
Now, here is the header from new Philips home page with new gateway:
No more pull-down menu — just a simple text link: United States – English.
Click on the link and you are taken to a new menu – notice the absence of flags:
Overall, a very nice improvement!
One recommendation: I would still like to see a globe icon positioned next to that global gateway link in the header. The icon communicates “global gateway” to users regardless of their native language.
To illustrate the value of the icon, here is the header from Philips Japan. Imagine you don’t understand Japanese and you want to navigate to a different local site; would you know that the link in the upper right corner is your way out?
Nevertheless, Philips has taken huge strides forward in improving its global gateway. (This will be reflected in the next Report Card.)
PS: Speaking of global gateway, there are still a few copies left of The Art of the Global Gateway (now on sale).
I recently participated in a 11-minute phone interview with Bill Cullifer, Executive Director of the World Organization of Webmasters.
We talked about web globalization and the 2012 Report Card. Here’s the audio link.
This week, ICANN begins accepting registrations for the much-hyped and controversial “.brand” generic domain names. What this means is that companies will be able to register domains that function without any .com suffix.
So what companies are going to register these domains?
Jacob Williams of UrbanBrain writes:
Based on my own personal experience I expect around 40-50 .brand applications to come from Japan. Unfortunately, I suspect that a lot companies will submit applications just to “protect” their brands.
He writes that Canon and Hitachi are the only two major Japanese companies to publicly commit to registering .brand TLDs.
On this side of the Pacific, I see only a handful of companies excited about .brand TLDs. According to AdAge, Google and Deloitte will be registering .brand domains, so we should expect .google and .deloitte at the minimum. Pepsi has stated that it won’t be registering a domain, but most companies have not commented one way or another.
I do expect Facebook to register .facebook.
Most high-level marketing folks see .brand as more of a pain than an opportunity.
That’s not to say we won’t see many high-level companies dive in — and enjoy plenty of media attention along the way.
But what’s the value to the customer of a .brand TLD?
That is, what’s broken with .com?
Are those four extra “.com” character really so difficult to type?
On a mobile device, perhaps they are. I make heavy use of the .com button on my iPhone, so we’re only talking about one extra button, but the point is that every button matters when it comes to trying to surf the web on a touchscreen device.
Perhaps that extra button is all the justification a company needs to push ahead with a .brand domain.
So despite my reservations about .brand, I do see a business case for a company registering one.
But I will reiterate here that I wish ICANN would put more resources into supporting and promoting IDNs — domains for which a true value exists to the user. IDNs are progressing along, but painfully slowly and with little in the way of evangelization and education.
So what other companies will be registering .brand domains? I’ll be keeping a running list here. Let me know if you know of others…
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