Questions tagged [internationalisation]
adapting an interface or content to the different languages, skill sets and expectancies of a globally accessible application.
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Labeling personal name field
I'm working on a form that will be used by users from all over the world to register for an account on a B2B website which is entirely in English. In order to create this account you need to provide ...
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Best way to approach user regarding phone number formatting?
I have a text messaging web application in which users can upload multiple phone numbers through Excel or CSV sheet. However, I need the phone numbers to be in specific format (i.e. E.164 - the ...
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Number/Date/... Standards for International English
We don't know (yet) where the user is located (browser detection is out of the question), so the user need to go from a global site to a country-specific site to select their prefered language and ...
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i18n and L10n on mobile for rtl languages
I am working on a mobile application which need to support rtl languages as well.
I got confused how I should render this menu I have in mobile application. It's a normal menu with Icon, Label and ...
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Is the question mark "?" internationally recognised as an icon for help?
I'm looking to use "?" as my help button icon in a desktop application but I'm unsure how universally recognisable this will be.
I can localise this for different culture if necessary.
Any ideas?
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How to get the best UX in multi-lingual blogs?
I'm about to start a blog, written both in English and Spanish, so I have several concerns:
1) Default language: Is setting it based on the users's browser language really accurate? (any statistics?)....
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Field label alignment and the problem of internationalization
The i18n problem
When designing for an internationalized app there are some feasibility issues that come up against UX concerns. Here's the one that's on my mind.
To account for variable text length, ...
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Why do some blogs and sales pages capitalize all words of titles in languages where such a form is not natural?
There is a form of expression that is valid in English, which is to capitalize the first letter of every word, including the link words, on a newspaper article title for example.
Translate the text in ...
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What are the recommended approaches to internationalization fallbacks?
I'm currently laying the groundwork for internationalizing a web application. I'm torn between falling back to using asterisks or just the default English text for missing translations. Using ...
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How should a sum of heterogeneous currencies be presented to the user?
We write analytics software. Recently our customers have asked us to take a look at expanding our services into the e-commerce arena, and this has raised some tricky questions in an internationalized ...
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How to make a marketplace multi languge support?
How to make a marketplace with buyers and suppliers multilingual? Because if someone writes product details with their language then how can another user in another country see the text in their ...
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"Lorem ipsum" for non-Latin scripts?
Lorem ipsum is the standard "placeholder" text for demonstrating typefaces or layouts in the Latin alphabet: it's got a relatively normal distribution of characters for a Western European language, ...
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Tagging symbols (eg. @, #) What are the others?
I am creating a tagging system like Facebook. But unlike Facebook, where it would show all kinds of objects (eg. people, page, groups) under the '@' symbol, I want to separate things better. For ...
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How should one communicate invalid/valid telephone numbers?
When filling in a form with real time validation and contextual help, how should one communicate the logic behind the telephone number validation?
For example, then contextual help would give hints ...
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Is the mental model of time advancing to the right in charts globally accepted?
Is it a common mental model, that in a chart visualizing a time dimension, the time is advancing to the right?
I'm currently working with the Internation Business Communication Standards (IBCS). They ...
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Software project with British documentation for US market
I'm working on a software product, currently based in the EU. The documentation is currently all written in British English. Senior management have recently announced their desire to market the ...
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US vs. New Zealand web design: the differences?
I design enterprise web apps in the US, and am looking to take on a New Zealand client. At first glance, the UI/UX tendencies of the New Zealand web space appears to be very similar if not identical ...
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Should I limit inputable characters in an internationalized multiplatform app?
Suppose I am releasing a mobile app and website and make it available to English-speaking and non-English speaking users.
We already support UTF8 encoding throughout our technical stack. However, is ...
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collapse vs minimize [duplicate]
Is it right to use the word "Collapse" to describe what this button do or "Minimize" is more correct?
What the difference in meanings of words "collapse" and "minimize" in context of computer program ...
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Should angle quotation marks be used as arrows?
Angle quotes (a.k.a. guillemets) are often used as arrows in pagination and such. For example, this image is from a pagination example on Bootstrap's site:
As a native U.S. English speaker, these ...
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What is the point of list-style-type?
In CSS we have different list-style options.
For example:
ol.decimal {list-style-type: decimal;}
ol.upper-roman {list-style-type: upper-roman;}
ol.lower-alpha {list-style-type: lower-alpha;}
ol....
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Address form, field for "region"
I've done some research and found that each country has its own way of subdividing the country into smaller parts. Examples:
Departments (France)
States (USA)
Provinces (Netherlands)
Counties (UK)
...
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Currency formatting for transactions in another country's currency
This is a really simple question, but the answer is stumping me: How do you format another country's currency correctly?
Specifically, this answer, quoting from Wikipedia, has a great survey of how ...
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Should we use localized tags
I am creating a webpage in which I have a form to register new products. I have implemented tagging feature (metatags to allow searching my products in search engines).
I am allowing users to ...
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Handling language transition mid user journey
I'm working on a corporate website intended for a global audience (>40 sales territories). The majority of the site content is available in 7 languages (covers 80% of users), with the display language ...
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What would be an appropriate visualization for the arabic language?
I'm working on an application that is multi-lingual: English, French, Spanish, Japanese, ... Arabic.
In some parts of the application, I use a little flag to represent the language used.
For English,...
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How can you make names in one alphabet readable and pronouncable by users of another alphabet?
A few months ago, World of Warcraft decided to make a drastic change in their Player vs Player matchmaking system: Russian players would be able to face off against non-Russian players on English ...
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Print mode, will users always print at 8.5 x 11?
So we are setting up a printable coupon page (using a print media query in css) which gives you a good bit of flexibility but it got me wondering; how often are people printing pages outside of 8.5 x ...
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All Caps in International Design [closed]
I have my own opinions on this but need some arguments when talking with designers. What are the advantages/disadvantages of using caps for all words in mobile application design?
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How important is localization?
I'm designing a website to provide support for internet connected devices. The website will also allow on-line purchases and subscription payments for accounts. I don't want to target only a specific ...
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Why Greek letter mu (μ) on European keyboards?
AZERTY-style keyboard layouts in France and Belgium have a dedicated key for typing the Greek small letter mu (μ). While not having a dedicated (μ) key, keyboards in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Iceland,...
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What to use as a textual link to a page showing a list of available languages?
We have a site that is written in English, exclusively for use people in the UK. All the pages are in English although there is one page that has been translated into 20-odd languages (that basically ...
JonW♦
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What is the best practice for enter key form submission on sites that use IMEs (i.e. Japanese)
I've got an enterprise app with various forms, some single input forms like global search boxes and other longer data entry style forms. For the West it is clear that pressing enter is a preferred ...
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Intuitive cross-cultural terms for full name and name-to-be-addressed-as
If a user interface only deals with English or European languages, it's usually quite straightforward to split a user's name into given_name and surname. This way, you can easily do things like:
"...
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Supporting International Billing Addresses, when they are a small % of user base
Our site is expanding internationally. During our checkout process, we ask customers to give us billing information such as Address, City, State, & Zip Code. This is used both for fraud prevention ...
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Common website phrases in multiple languages?
Is there a resource anywhere that lists common web UI phrases in multiple languages?
I'm interested in having quick access to translations of phrases like cancel, save, welcome, and so on for quick ...
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4
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How to capture language of input?
I am making a Windows Phone application that scans barcodes of grocery items. If the barcode is not found I ask the user to fill in info such as
name
brand
unit size
I am mainly focusing on English ...
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2
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Allowing non-Latin characters in address fields?
I'm building a site which will allow users to enter physical street addresses. My primary target audience is US-based but I'd like the site to be global and also accommodate an international audience ...
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International conventions/standards for abbreviating large numbers?
The concept of formatting large numbers in an abbreviated fashion for casual, non-scientific display (e.g. 12,345 as "12.3k") is well explored on SE:
What is an alternative way to display a very ...
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Colours in cultures : where does the data come from?
I've just come across a chart called "Colours in Cultures" that you can find here :
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/colours-in-cultures/
Since I'd rather not bother the author ...
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Any research about "few markets" that expect external links to be opened in new windows/tabs?
Google AdSense, an advertisement service, documents in "Opening the ads in a new window":
Generally, it is our policy to not allow Google ads to open in a new window. However, in a few markets, ...
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Is it ok to use different fonts for translated versions of the same website?
I am building a webpage for a company that is present in many countries, thats why there will be individual websites for every country. While having no problems with the technical aspects, I am a bit ...
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UI mirroring for RTL languages on Mac?
Apple does not mirror their user interfaces for right-to-left languages (Arabic, Hebrew). Text and is often mirrored, but not always like controller labels.
As I understand it, right-to-left users ...
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Using text from Google translate
This is regarding android application.
As per my analysis, the translation from Google translate is not perfect.
Will it be ok show non-english users a dialog with the following content:
This ...
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Right to left graph labels for right-to-left languages
When building a graph or chart for use by right-to-left languages such as Arabic should the labels also change? For instance it is generally accepted in my English speaking culture that lower numbers ...
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Guidelines for designing usability for Japanese elderly
I'm currently working on a Japanese website (all in Japanese) aimed towards Japanese users age ranging from 50+. It's not a traffic heavy website and it's just mostly text and information with a news/...
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Common date and time format for European and US users [duplicate]
I'm creating a form with both date and time fields. To help the user I'm using a placeholder value to demonstrate how the the respective formats should look like, but I'm not at all sure on what ...
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Are there any commonly used icons that don't internationalize well? [closed]
I am a UX designer for a software company, and our product has been translated for the following:
French
German
Italian
Spanish
Romanian
Japanese
Chinese
Are there any icons that are commonly used ...
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2k
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How should keyboard mnemonics be localized?
Is there a standard approach to localizing (internationalize) keyboard mnemonics?
For example, in Windows Notepad in English, if the user types Alt+E then P, the Edit menu opens and then the Paste ...
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Save language preference for next visit?
We are creating a language dialog that suggest the user to change language based on the set browser language. E.g. if someone with browserlanguage ch-de visits our English website, a dialog at the top ...
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