4

I see that a lot of companies are sending users to a new page to select a different language/country. Once on the page, it is generally just a huge list of countries sorted by continent. Or, users are prompted to select a continent and it filters down from there. This seems to be done by the majority of big companies (see Apple or Nike for examples.)

What is the advantage of that instead of using some type of accordion on the page? Such as how its done at http://us.pg.com/ or http://www.wacom.com/ or youtube (which does the same but in the footer.)

It seems like the interaction cost is significantly less using an accordion or dropdown that doesn't have to change pages and load. Am I missing something?

Improve this question

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
2

I don't think you are missing anything, the above site 'http://us.pg.com/ or http://www.wacom.com/' options are handled very well.

My analysis on apple.com, country selection must be in new page because the country list is more than 140+. Its hard to handle such a big number selection on same page.

My suggestion on providing the Country selection option

  • if the supporting country on the respective website is less than 60, place it on the same page with accordion or some better UX
  • if the supporting country on the respective website is more than 60, Keep it in new page
Improve this answer
3
  • Thanks for your response, I agree that the number of supported countries could be a good gage of how you handle the placement of country selection.
    – uxhalp
    Jun 12, 2016 at 18:20
  • Why do you draw the line at 60 ?
    – Sebastian G. Marinescu
    Jun 15, 2016 at 20:53
  • @SebastianG.Marinescu I had gone through couple of top sites and analysed what max we can accommodate on first fold. Based on that I decided 60 is the standard number.
    – Grafix Guru
    Jun 16, 2016 at 4:49
1

Both options seem valid for me, it all depends on the business rules behind it. You cannot compare a content website like youtube to a brand website like wacom of pg.

  • A brand website usually create this kind of pages because they have different localised website across the regions. The websites might look really different in terms of look and feel and experience. So this page will be like your passport to the region you're switching to.

    • In the case of youtube, you're actually staying within the same platform and what you're actually doing is switching the content depending on the country of your preference. That's why, switching from the footer will make you expect that the website will not change, what changes is actually the content.
Improve this answer
0

It might also be interesting to try to access these sites with restricted browsers (say lynx or with JavaScript disabled) or from a machine equipped for blind users. Having a dedicated, static HTML page might be part of the strategy for dealing with these situations.

Improve this answer
1
  • Interesting considerations I didn't think of. I don't think they would be too difficult for people navigating via a keyboard interface but I'll have to take a look at other potential accessibility issues.
    – uxhalp
    Jun 12, 2016 at 18:24

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.