What are the top 3 Technology considerations to internationalize the social media aspects of your website?

When people talk about Globalization, Internationalization or Localization, we’re not just talking about having a website in different languages; it is more about having a culturally sensitive website. Here are 3 of the top considerations:

1. Date Formatting: This is something which non-US based people become very wound up about and is something which even domestic organizations should consider. Even if your membership is US based, you might have someone outside of the US register for an event or purchase some other kind of product. Ensure your developers are building dates which are culturally sensitive i.e. use an Australian date format for someone who is viewing using an Australian cultured web-browser or a UK format for a UK web browser. Another, simpler way of dealing with it is based on the website. If you are looking at a UK based site, then there is a reasonable expectation the site will have UK date formatting. This is acceptable as long as you display a sample date next to the text edit box. If you are simply displaying a date, ensure it is spelled out i.e. “03 Jan 2009” or “Jan 03, 2009” is perfectly acceptable to anyone viewing a site vs. “03-01-2009” or “01-03-2009” is not due to possible confusion.

2. Internationalization: For anyone who knows anything about software internationalization, this is often referred to as I18N (see if you can guess why).

In the computer world, before we look at what language is to be used, we look at the culture of that language i.e. British English vs. US English (where US vs. British are the two cultures). When we use a date culture setting for the same language it is called localization. For example:

en-US is “English – US” vs. en-GB for “English – UK (Great Britain)” vs. en-AU for “English – Australia”

An international website would have both a site and browser based language and culture setting. This is used wherever you wish to display a phrase and there might be differences between cultures. For example: If I view a site with the word “Organization Name” – I would see exactly this on an en-US site. However, from a en-GB browser, I might see “Organisation Name” (note the culturally sensitive spelling difference).

When programming the site, the software is typically examined for these words and where there is a culturally sensitive word, you would take the word out of the code and add it to what is often referred to as a resource file. The resource file is simply a long list of words and phrases which are translated into different cultures and languages. When the interpretation takes place, the program would typically check to see if there is an en-GB resource file and if not, it would check for just a “en” file. If that doesn’t exist, it will just use the site default.

Keep in mind this gets even more complicated when you consider that for a single word, the order might be different in a given language. For example, a particular culture might say “Registration for Andy Steggles” while another might say “Andy Steggles Registration”. This means the entire phrase needs to be an entry in your resource file where the name is a dynamically translated variable.


3. Currency: This is less of an internationalization issue vs. a financial issue. If you take the traditional route and put the dollar sign in a Resource File for en-US and put a pound sign for en-GB, this is fine except the US$50 will suddenly become UKP50. In other words, the sign has changed but the amount has not. You would typically get around this by not using a resource file for the sign and only billing in one language, or by putting currency conversion amounts into a lookup table to be displayed with the appropriate culture sign i.e. a pound sign. Dynamic conversion is an option but keep in mind if the funds are received in a single currency then the dynamic conversion might be different from your banks conversion (best left to the bank to sort out).


Other Considerations:

Spacing: Keep in mind that something that is quick and easy in English and might only be a 3 word phrase could be a 10 word phrase in Spanish. Ensure when you design a screen that there is enough space for the prompts in the different languages.

Order: Remember the way in which people read is important. For example, Japanese read right to left, top to bottom i.e. look to the top right and read down and then move left a column and go from the top to bottom again. Similarly, Arabic is read in rows but from right to left (so words are spelled backwards).

Note: When selecting a vendor, ask them about their international strategy in terms of making their website culture sensitive.