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A large number of multi-lingual web sites are created with the attitude, that just by their existence they will attract customers. Consequently much thinking does not go into the web site translation. This is among the primary reasons for the less-than-desirable performance of such web sites.
Speaking to potential customers in their own language is not enough, one needs to understand their culture, traditions, their expectations, likes and dislikes in order to get through. At present a lot of web sites are made with short-cut strategies like, which just ensure that a web site is very simple and predictable so that the user can easily find his/her way through it. But then this a major reason that they don’t stand out in the users’ memories.
Some tips that would help –
Revise the tone of the language of your web site, especially if it’s informal. North Americans go about their business in a pretty informal manner. But the Japanese are quite the opposite. So web sites in the US can refer to their users by their first names but not those that are targeted to the Japanese.
Make sure that your web site complies with the local laws of the country of your target users.
Revise elements like date and time format, systems of measurements and the like to confirm with the local standard.
Provide the required foreign language support to ensure that foreign language mails are not garbled after entering the company’s servers and various foreign symbols don’t go missing/get altered due to incorrect character encoding.
Make it easy for your targeted users to find your web site in their language. It’s quite surprising that many companies spend a considerable amount of money on building multilingual websites in which access to foreign language versions is hidden in some corner or through flags which might not stand for the language known by specific users.
Color and design sensibilities vary across different cultures, similarly various icons and symbols used by web sites may mean different things to different people. So use them after a proper study of how they are perceived by the target population.
High resolution graphics are great to look at but not all parts of the world have access to high speed Internet connections, and a slow site is never a good experience. Design your international web site with care.
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