Think

 

When considering translation of a website into another language, it is important to remember the differences that may exist in a particular language that is spoken in more than one country. For example, consider whether you are designing your web pages in Swedish for users living in Finland who count Swedish as their mother tongue, or people living in Sweden, or both.

 

People Differ

 

People living in another country may not be familiar with your society and systems. This fact is particularly relevant when dealing with abstracts in study descriptions, as some terms related to health care, taxation, educational systems, etc. may not be understandable to users from other countries, even if they speak the language. It may be better to globalise some terms instead of merely translating the abstract as it is. The procedures for ordering data may also be different for researchers working in your country and for researchers working in another country. Ordering information should clearly reflect this.

 

The Important Role Of Translators.

 

The people who are paying most detailed attention to the content of a multilingual website are the translators. Therefore, if translation is contracted out, the translators should be well-informed as to the goals and target audience for the site. This will make it easier for them to decide when the content needs to be adapted to fulfil the goals. Even if the person doing the translation is a staff member, process writing and teamwork is always useful. We suggest pre-writing, consultations with other staff members to discuss the result followed by revision, user tests, and further revision. Many heads are better than one.

 

Easy navigation

 

Clarity of navigation is a must, whatever the language. It is a well-known fact that Internet users are impatient. It has been said that;

 

“if a man from Mars doesn’t figure out your navigation in four seconds, your web page sucks” (Flanders).

 

Even though somewhat provocatively expressed, these are wise words and well worth keeping in mind!

 

Two main pitfalls

 

Two main pitfalls in navigation are making the navigation meet the needs of the organisation rather than those of the user and assuming that users know more of the organisation and its services than they in fact do. If the website does not provide one specific link to the data catalogue, but has several links to different types of surveys (for example, different survey series), it may confuse users. They will have to go to the page of each different type of survey and try to figure out how they are categorized and what the content is. Navigation problems like these are easily revealed by a simple user test. Again, some kind of declaration of content will be beneficial.

 

Solution

 

Regarding links between language versions, frequently used practices are the best. We recommend putting language links where users expect to find them and always in the same place on every page. If the language links are flag-based, adding or replacing these with text (English, español, deutsch) is strongly recommended. People do not remember flags, and, in the case where one language is spoken in several countries – which flag would you choose?

 

When providing links from one language version to another, the optimal solution is to provide a direct link to the corresponding page in another language. However, this is often difficult or impossible since the content of different language versions differ. It also means more work. Linking to the home page in the other language is the most common solution, which again stresses the importance of a clear and understandable navigation design. Users will be keen to get back to “that one important” page instead having to test their search skills trying to figure out where they might find it. This task is made easier if bread crumbs are used on each page and, if possible, each language version should be given similar structure.

 

Web design

 

We recommend that plenty of time be dedicated to discussing web design. Concentrate on achieving your desired goals. Web design should be based on the goals and target audience chosen for each language version. What functionalities might target users expect?

 

Internet Users Are Impatient

 

In all web design it is important to remember that Internet users are likely to be impatient. Avoid splashes and unnecessary animation, especially on the index page of your website. Has anyone ever seen an animation that they would like to see again, again and again? It is advisable to think twice before choosing to rely solely on for example Flash techniques or additional plug-ins. Difficult or non-conventional navigation (which means that users get lost and frequently have to return to the main page) combined with time-consuming animation on the main page usually results in very frustrated users. This type of design does not work for information-rich websites where it is crucial to be able to find a particular piece of information without too much effort. This is why popular web services like Google rely on a simple and fast-loading front page.

 

Templates

 

Applying some kind of a template system reduces the burden of running websites in multiple languages. When changes are needed in navigation or in other fairly constant elements of the site, templates make life much easier. Fonts, colours, titles, navigation links and so forth are controlled by one style sheet and one design template, meaning that only one alteration per language is sufficient. Using templates also tends to have the effect of pushing the web design toward an easily-maintained form, which is good for everyone.

 

It is a good practise to put navigational elements (search interface, database field names, etc.) into language packs, and to keep them as separate as possible from the text content of the site. This is preferable to coding these elements into the source code directly. With language packs, it is easier to translate functionalities like navigation, search interface etc., and to make changes in all language versions simultaneously or even to add completely new language versions.

 

Check and Monitor Your Website Constantly

 

When a website is up and running it should not be left on its own. Checking the log files periodically gives valuable information on where users are coming from, how long they spend on the site, if there are pages that are more popular than others, and which pages (if any) tend to drive people away to information sources outside your site. Analysing search logs helps to find out how and what people are searching for, and whether they are looking for information that does not exist on your site, or whether they are looking for existing information but in a wrong place. Log file information can be used to improve your web service.

 

In Conclusion

 

The main point of our discussion is that multilingual websites should be designed as if they were separate websites developed in separate languages, rather than multiple translations of a single language site. What we are talking about here is creating new websites in other languages. What the content and actual technical solutions are depend very much on the goals set for each site. Decide on your goals, be clear about what services you are providing, and never lose your users to difficult navigation.

There is always room for improvement!