Web Design and Localization

TC510 Lily Sun

Localization is the process of creating or adapting a product to a specific locale, i.e. to the language, cultural context, conventions and market requirements of a specific target market. In this chapter, we are assuming the English design will be the original design on the basis of which all pages will be localized.

The Internet has eliminated distance as a barrier to sharing information at a worldwide level. Now the biggest barrier to communication is language. 2,113,000,000 Internet users speak languages other than English. They make up 70.2% of the world economy.

Increasingly international-oriented companies have their websites localized into multiple languages to take advantage of the promotional and commercial values of the Internet. As they have found, the localization process can be very time-consuming, costly and frustrating if the English web pages were not designed for this purpose.

Web design and the localization process are closely connected. A good web design, which has considered factors for localization, is the first step of promoting your website worldwide. Principles we discussed in earlier chapters can be considered as general guidelines for designing web for localization, too. However, we will introduce some principles of special importance to this topic.

Consistency

There are three options for localizing your website:

1. keep the look and the layout of the website and only translate the content
2. change part of the layout or color of the website and translate the content
3. create a new look and layout according to the taste of the target country and translate the content

Many companies in 1990s adopted the first method because it can save money and time significantly. This method works well for informative websites. The purposes of these websites are to introduce a kind of product or service, and so on. The sole goal is to convey the information when users come to their sites. Yahoo! is a good user of this method. It being a portal site, users come to Yahoo! for classified information and search. They expect the website to be simple, direct and classified. That is what Yahoo! gave their users all over the world.

Commercial websites, such as msn.com and excite.com, usually adopt the second method because they need to attract users to visit repeatedly. This goal can only be achieved through localizing both the content and the graphics to an appealing level for the target users. Sometimes they change the main color to a more pleasant one for the target country while keeping the layout. Sometimes they change the layout to what the target users are more adapted to while keeping the main color. Keeping one element, such as the main color or layout, of the website can create a valuable consistency among sites in different languages. It not only cuts down the cost, but also creates a "well-organized big company" image, which is usually appealing to the audience all over the world. It makes them feel they are part of something "big and popular".

One of the problems with this method is that designers sometimes tend to overuse symbols or favorite colors of the target countries. It is a popular impression that Chinese people like red and yellow. In Chinese culture, red means happiness and yellow is the royal color. So designers often try to integrate red or yellow into the Chinese version of their websites. Unfortunately these colors are not always suitable for their websites. Symbols can create even more problems, which we will discuss later in this chapter. MSN kept their main color for the titles, blue, in their localized pages. Although they added new contents for different target countries, a consistency is achieved.

Rarely, some websites tend to change everything, from color to content when they localize their websites to other languages. The only thing that remains the same with the English version is the logo. This method has not been and probably will not be popular because of its costly nature.

For either options, consulting in-country designers or cultural consultants before localizing is the most effective start of the whole localization process.

Navigation bars

In designing websites for localization, text has substantial advantages over buttons for the links on navigation bars:

1. It takes less time to translate text than to translate graphics.
2. It demands fewer skills to translate text than to translate graphics.
3. It is easier to change when there is an error.
4. It is easier to update when new things need to be added.
5. Text works just as well for clicking.
6. Text cost less band-width, which is extremely important for some countries due to the slow speed of their internet.

For the links to different languages, many websites use graphics instead, simply because the links were written in foreign languages and the English character set does not support foreign characters. Bowne, one of the major localization service providers on the west coast of the United States, is an example of this kind.

Another solution for this is to use English text, just as Yahoo! did. The all-text solution works better especially when the website will be localized into many languages. If we use buttons for all these language links, the download speed for the page will be significantly decelerated. Maybe some neat features, such as fly-out menus, will not work well when the navigation bars are text, but it is worth it.

It is also desirable to create the top and/or left navigation bar as a template for localization purposes. Remember how many times you have to change the text of a navigation link until you find the right words? The same thing will happen to all the languages you are trying to localize your website to. If there is a template, changes can be made at one place for all pages. The translators will not be afraid of rethinking their translations and making changes.

Writing

Writing for the web is tricky enough because the designers can not control what size the users set to view their pages. Writing for a website which is going to be localized is "Mission Impossible". For the simple sentence "The amount of graphics on web pages should be minimized. (Designing web usability, p314) ", the English sentence takes 318 pixels (font: Arial, font size: 12) in length. Its Chinese equivalent only takes half as much in length, but more in height. Writing in short words and sentences is very important for this reason. Sometimes the writer may need to prepare to add or delete a few words without damaging the content to adjust to the space.

Each language is unique. While designing websites for localization, it is better to think of their uniqueness. For example, in English writing for the web, it is very common to use bold text to draw the user's attention. However, in Chinese, bold text is smaller than regular text of the same size and is not very appealing to the eye. Technical writers are not expected to be experts of all foreign languages. However, having some knowledge on some features of multiple languages can benefit the localization process significantly. Do not use machine translation for professional purposes. Because of the difference in language structure in different languages, machine translation is generally not more useful than a word-for-word reference.

Static Graphics

The number of static graphics on web pages should be minimized, even more so for localization on reasons. Static graphics localization is largely graphics recreation. For example, a picture of a local person is one of the kinds of static graphics most frequently used for the Internet. When the website is localized into another language, it is often more desirable to substitute the picture of the American man with the image of a local person.

However, it is for more than the art and software skills reason that localizing graphics is more difficult than to localize text. This example I have is the graphics of a dragon, which is for the Chinese market: It is a cute opening page for a search engine. Most of my American colleagues commented how nice and cute it is when they first saw it. But all my Chinese colleagues and most of my Asian colleagues said, "That is not a Chinese dragon!" Even without considering the fact that the face of the dragon looks like that of a horse, it still does not look Chinese. The little dragon in Mulan and this one are both western versions of Chinese dragons. If it is definitely necessary to localize the graphics by creating a new one appealing for the target culture, hire a local designer.

Try to use as few icons as possible. Definitely eliminate icons that are not internationally recognized. More icons only means one thing - more work. An item as simple as a mail box can have different images in different countries. These icons will not make sense to people in most other cultures without explanations:

In earlier chapters, I also discouraged designers to use animation. However, we have to take the internet development history of the target countries into consideration when we discuss animations in this chapter. Sometimes animation is necessary, even if it means longer time to download. If we go to a Chinese website, we will find multiple items on the screen flashing or moving. Take one of the biggest websites in mainland China, netease.com, for example. There are eight animated graphics on the index page flashing or moving around the page. In the number one website in China, sina.com, five items were flashing or moving. On the index page of the most popular website in Hong Kong, tom.com, there are 10 pictures flashing all the time. This phenomenon can be explained by the statistics released by Chinese Internet Network Information Center. Among the 22,500,000 internet users in China, 56.07% are under 24 years old. 66.5% think animated graphics are the most attractive for clicking. According to this data, using flash for the Chinese market is appropriate. However, most Chinese internet users do not have flash program. Download is just a click away? Not that simple. 28.03% of the Chinese internet users surf the internet from "Internet Cafes", public internet facilities, which users rent by the hour. 63.62% of them use the internet from their work or school. These people are not free to make download choices even if they would like to.

China is not the only country with a young Internet user group and a young internet. It is of great importance to analysis data concerning Iternet users, hardware and software of the target countries. Thanks to the development of technology, it is now an easy process to code the server to detect whether the user has Flash on his computer.

Most of the websites which utilize Flash initiate a pop up window, asking if the user wants to download Flash when they do not have one. If the user does not have flash and chooses not to download the program, there will be a blank space on the web page where the animated graphic is supposed to be. That is rather unpleasant. An html file should substitute the Flash file so that the user can still view all the information. User's choice should be respected and remembered. The next time they load the page, the Flash or html should be loaded without any more questions or delay. International users should be given a chance of choosing which language they would like to set up as default for each website for the ease of navigation.

Conclusion

The time language was a barrier to communication will soon be history, just like distance has been to economy. Economy and Internet of developing countries are growing in such a way that international-oriented companies and organizations cannot afford to ignore the importance of localizing thier websites, the most effective and efficient way of communications. Websites are means of communications. Communications involves language. Language is based on thinking and culture. As designers in this "world village", we are required by this era and the future to think differently -- to think in a multi-cultural setting. The design of colors and buttons, the choice of links and information, the writing and the server side functionsin for different cultures all need to be payed special attention from the begining of the website development process for the ease of later localization process. A good design is the first step to the success of web localization.

Reference

CNNIC survey, Jan. 2001, China Internet Network Information Center

Global Internet Statistics, Global Reach

Farkas, David K. & Farkas, Jean B. (1998-2000). Website Design: Theory and Principles. Unpublished manuscript. Nielsen, Jakob (2000). Designing Web Usability. Indiana: New Riders Publishing.

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