How to handle language preference

Question

I have a website where I authorize user to change the language of the website thanks to a drop-down list that he can find in the top right on every page.

By default, the language is set accordingly to the browser language.

As for now, if user changes language, it is set for the time of the current session.

The thing is, you can create an account and you can change the language of the website from there (as a setting). But, you can always change the language for the time of a session with the drop-down list, which is kind of confusing.

So, when user is logged in, what should I do? get rid of the drop-down list? or have the drop-down menu to change the user account settings?

Answer 1

You said it yourself:

You can always change the language for the time of a session with the drop-down list, which is kind of confusing.

Is there a use case where users need to have that possibility to change to another language for during one session?

If not (which I suppose), the answer is easy: get rid of it. User can change their language preference in the account settings, or by using the drop down menu. In every case, the chosen settings is persisted.

I am not suggesting to remove the drop down box. Keep it. It serves its purpose towards users that are not logged in or don't have an account. But the functionality should be the same as the account settings: it should be persistent so that next time you visit the site, it's in the same language.

Answer 2

Your site must be having an home/welcome screen for an logged in user, now when the user changes the language why don't you direct him to welcome screen, but if he is trying to edit his profile and changes language while doing so, prompt him for unchanged fields if auto save is not provided.

By the way majority of users will select the language before at login screen itself(I do the same and have seen many do it this way).