Category Archives: Global navigation

Web globalization in a post-PC world

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Source: The Noun Project

Source: The Noun Project

The 2012 Web Globalization Report Card is my first attempt at analyzing web globalization in a post-PC world.

By post-PC world, I’m referring to  a world in which the website adapts not only to the device (PC, tablet, smartphone) but also to the user. That is, it’s not enough to adapt to an iPad, but you also need to consider what tasks that user needs to accomplish with that iPad. Location matters. Context matters. And, yes, language and culture certainly matter (though these two details have so far gone overlooked by many mobile websites and apps).

But first let me back up two years.

When the iPad first came out, one of the main selling points was how easy it made browsing the web — assuming that website didn’t include any Flash elements.

At the time it seemed that companies needed only to get rid of Flash to be fully accessible to the growing number of iPad users. (Amazingly, more than a third of the websites reviewed in the 2012 Report Card still use Flash).

I want to stress here that Flash isn’t just an Apple limitation; the coming tablets from Microsoft will also be devoid of any native support for Flash. But Flash is really just the tip of the iceberg as far as tablets are concerned.

This post-PC world is about completely rethinking the “web” experience. And I include apps here, because apps are often pulling the same data as a website, but doing so through an interface (and code base) that takes full advantage of the features of that mobile operating system (like caching data, supplying the user’s location, saving user preferences, enabling the phone, camera, etc.) This is all very exciting — but also very complicated. And chaotic if you’re in charge of managing all of these moving parts.

Consider Hotels.com, which was ranked #5 in this year’s report. The company currently supports (in 38 languages):

  • A website specifically for the PC
  • An website for smartphones
  • A mobile app for smartphones
  • A mobile app specifically for the iPad

In just a few years, companies have gone from supporting a PC website and, maybe, supporting a mobile website that very few people ever used — to supporting a diverse range of websites and apps.

Where does web globalization fit into all of this?

Currently, not very well. That is, many of the companies studied in this report may support 20 or more languages on their PC sites but only one or two languages on their mobile apps or websites.  And global navigation is not always well thought out. Users might have to dig to find localized websites or content.

These are early days still.

And that’s where the Report Card fits in. Because the companies that merge global requirements with their mobile requirements are going to be far better off in the long run. “World readiness” will need to be given the same priority as “mobile readiness.”

In this year’s report, I added three key metrics to the methodology, metrics that I believe will become requirements in the years ahead:

1. Support language parity across PC and mobile. Right now, very few companies maintain the same linguistic experience across PCs and mobile devices. The language leader in iPhone mobile apps is Google, with support for 42 languages via its search app. And this is the leader. Granted, the iPhone operating system isn’t itself exactly a language leader at  33 languages — compared with Android (4.0) at 57. But few companies have gotten close to testing these language limits.

Most  companies are happy to offer mobile apps that support around 10 languages or fewer — even though their PC websites support 20 or more languages. Mobile should receive the same degree of language support as PC. Given mobile vs. PC usage in some countries, one could argue that your language budget is better served on the mobile side before the PC side (a subject for a later post).

2. Keep it lightweight. Just because a web user has a broadband connection at home doesn’t mean that his or her iPad will have a broadband connection in, say, an airport. Despite the many promises of wireless carriers, wireless broadband is just not a reality for most people. It’s time for companies to put strict weight limits in place for their websites to ensure that users on mobile devices have a positive experience. This is one of the easiest wins on the web these days and I’m still surprised how many companies overlook it. Speed was one of the main reasons Google became the dominant search provider. And speed still is very much a way to stand apart from your competition, not just in one country but in any country.

3. Get rid of Flash. I don’t hate Flash, but I’m a pragmatist. It’s challenging enough for web teams to manage content across so many devices let alone to worry about also supporting Flash vs. non-Flash sites. By eliminating Flash, you free up resources to focus on mobile devices and user scenarios. And here’s one bonus reason for eliminating Flash — you free up your content to be self-translated by the user via Google Translate or Bing Translate.

Nike, which is included in this report, has been steadily migrating away from Flash. It still uses so much Flash on its PC site that it had to create a separate website for the iPad.

In my experience, the Nike iPad website offers a superior experience than the PC site. The site is more lightweight and the content more focused. Tablets force a “less is more” approach to design, which in my experience is usually a better experience.

It’s a great time to take chances

All companies are well aware of the opportunities that mobile offers. But only a few companies are leading. Hotels.com is certainly one of the leaders. Facebook and Google are there as well. To be a leader these days is to take chances. Though some standards have emerged, there really is no “one” way to design a website for the iPad or a smartphone. It reminds me of the early days of the Internet itself. The post-PC era is going to give birth to new standards and new leaders.

NOTE: Here are some post-PC numbers.

Users don’t change settings — so you better guess right

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There’s a good article on Brainsparks about how rarely users get around to changing their default computer settings.

“Less than 5% of the users we surveyed had changed any settings at all.”

This statistic has great relevance to web globalization. It means that if you’re using auto-detect features — such as geolocation to detect the user’s location and language negotiation to detect the user’s web browser language setting — you had better do so with care.

That is, if you think the user prefers German, you should also give the user the ability to opt out. That’s where the visual global gateway comes into play, nicely illustrated by Caterpillar here:

I’ve been to web sites that only use geolocation and language negotiation — effectively locking users into a given setting. That’s bad. Very bad. I literally had to flush the cookies out of my browser to escape the setting I was given by one web site — how many web users are going to know to do the same? Not many, I would guess. Definitely less than 5%!

If you’re going to make assumptions about a user’s preferred language, also assume that you might be wrong — and plan accordingly.

ADP’s global gateway combines globe and flag icons

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Payroll services company ADP demonstrates that you don’t necessarily have to choose between using a flag icon or using a globe icon on your global gateway.

As shown below, the company uses both:

And here is the Brazil home page:

I don’t typically recommend using both a globe icon and a map icon. I believe a globe icon alone is sufficient.

But if you have to choose between using neither or both, choose both.

For more on global gateways, check out the book.

Global gateway notes: Guidewire, Google, Locaria

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One of the many things I love about global gateways is that I never stop discovering new ones.

Here are notes on a few gateways I’ve stumbled across over the past few weeks.

Let’s begin with a gateway that exhibits a classic rookie mistake:

I’m sure you spotted it right away — flags should never be used to indicate language.

Companies that use flags in this manner tend to be companies that are just getting started with web localization. In some cases, these flags come packaged as widgets (usually combined with a Google Translate backend).  I’ve come to believe that this is just one of these practices that companies have to grow out of.  And most do, over time.

 

Guidewire

Guidewire’s gateway wisely does not use flags. And it is also perfectly positioned in the upper righthand corner of the web site.

But when you click on the pull-down menu, you see an inconsistently displayed list of languages.


Notice how French and German are in their native languages, but Japanese and Chinese are not.

I’ve noticed a number of global gateways in which the Asian scripts are not presented in their native scripts. Years ago, this was because the web team didn’t want to specify Unicode on the home page. Today, however, I view this largely as an oversight. Interestingly, the Guidewire China web site features a globe icon next to its gateway. Looking ahead, I’d love to see this icon added to the .com site as well.

 

Google Plus

Speaking of globe icons, I discovered this icon at the bottom of the Google Plus home page:


As for the menu itself, the languages are natively presented, which is always nice to see:

But pull-down menus are not all that pleasant to scroll through when they’re long, and this one is indeed quite long. Interestingly, Google already has an alternative to the pull-down menu in place on YouTube (here’s an excerpt from the language menu):

Instead of a pull-down menu, YouTube uses an overlay, which bypasses the scrolling issue. I’ve been told that Google is working hard to merge these disparate global gateways into a seamless and user-friendly whole. Perhaps we’ll see progress by the end of this year.

 

Locaria

Translation agencies should be expected to provide user-friendly multilingual navigation. And while this approach by Locaria isn’t the most scalable, it’s visually engaging and, fun to toy with. I imagine it’s a great device for making potential clients aware of all the languages the company supports.

Have you encountered any must-see gateways lately? If so, let me know!