Comments on: Three rules of global gateway design

By: The most popular posts of 2009 | Global by Design

The most popular posts of 2009 | Global by Design — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 04:15:46 +0000

[...] 1 to 100 languages in two yearsIs this the next language icon?Google Translate now in 41 languagesThree rules of global gateway designKindle goes international, but not multilingualBit.ly is leaving Libya for the islandsCountryless [...]

By: Emma Prunty

Emma Prunty — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:13:43 +0000

I agree with Erin. It’s always complicated – for example I live in Norway but I don’t necessarily want to see a Norwegian version of the website I visit (flysas.com) or service I want to use (e.g. iTunes). Just because I live in a particular country doesn’t mean I want to view a site in the main language of that country. But then again, I do want to see products or services available only here. So I often check ikea.no to see what I could buy and at what price but might have to visit ikea.co.uk to see English-language descriptions. Of course, many international users are used to finding such shortcuts around these problems.

Are there examples of sites that really get it right? there are so many variables.

By: John Yunker

John Yunker — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:55:48 +0000

Hi Erin — great point!

When sites make assumptions about geography and languages, gaps are inherently created — gaps that users can fall in between.

By: Erin DeBell

Erin DeBell — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 04:33:06 +0000

Not sure how important this is, but when you click on North America as the region of residence it automatically takes you to the English version of the site. If you click on Europe there is the option to view the site in Spanish. Clearly the site is tailored to Spanish from Spain, but what about US-based Spanish speakers (and others) who might prefer to see content in Spanish but would never click Europe as region of residence? How will they ever know their prefered language is available? I’m sure the majority won’t be clicking on Europe to find Spanish. Also, If you click on Español at the top of the page, there is then the option to click on the region of norteamerica, but the content is then delivered in English. Granted there is an inherent problem because the content is region-specific. If you live in Europe the winner you read about is from London. If you click on Europe and then Spanish, you see the European content (London winner) in Spanish. Still, I’d rather read and understand the text about the London winner than have to read about the North American winner in English when I was specifically looking to view the site in my native language.

By: Gunnar Bittersmann

Gunnar Bittersmann — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 08:22:42 +0000

I’d have a ruke to add: Make it visible to the user how she can change the language.

Their homepage http://www.hyatt.com/hyatt/index.jsp is language negotiated, thumbs up. But what if the the browser settings are wrong and the user does not speak the displayed language? How does the user know she would have to click on “English” if she doesn’t understand English at all? Pull-down menus for language setting are problematic, cf. http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-navigation-select

By: Saskia Idzerda

Saskia Idzerda — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:42:25 +0000

I don’t think you are too hard on this site at all.
In my experience, you need to be aware of two things:Not everyone knows which region their country is in.Not everyone knows what their country is called in English.Not everyone can point out their country on a map..
So I think the best option for a portal page is still to show all available countries in their own language. It generally doesn’t make for the most elegant page, but it does get users where they need to go.