Separating the Constants from the Variables - Page 3
October 7, 2002
The main purpose of internationalization is to isolate the graphical and textual
elements of a web site that change from locale to locale as well as within the
locale itself. The way these elements are managed for each market—in terms
of design and text—will be covered in later chapters. For now, you just
want to make sure you've got a good understanding of what elements will
change and what elements will not.
The Constants
A constant is anything that remains the same, no matter what market you localize
for. It can be the design template that your site shares across all web pages,
or it could be a collection of scripts and style sheets. It can also be a collection
of what's called "corporate constants," such as brand names,
slogans, logos, colors, and navigation menus. For example, in the Spanish banner
ad for Volvo, shown in Figure 7.2, notice
that the slogan "for life" remains in English. Very often, companies
decide to maintain a global slogan regardless of the target market.
Figure 7.2
In the Volvo banner ad, the logo and slogan are constants.
Some companies also maintain unique colors across all locales, such as the
Coca-Cola red or IBM blue or UPS brown. Despite how various cultures perceive
colors, many corporations elect to err on the side of consistency.
The Variables
Variables include anything that changes from market to market or within
a market. During the internationalization stage, you focus on isolating the
variables and modifying your site so that they can be more easily adapted to
each market. Variables include:
The more variables your site consists of, the more challenging internationalization
becomes. However, there is no rule that says you have to offer the same variables
across all locales. To simplify internationalization and localization, you might
decide to limit the number of variables available in each localized site. In
fact, it's rare to find a company that provides the same level of functionality
and support on its localized sites that it does on its source-language site.
Text Expansion and Contraction
When a block of text is translated into another language, it tends to expand
or contract, depending on the target language. This phenomenon, known as text
expansion or text contraction, occurs because translation
is not a one-to-one process. The word cat in English translates to "gato"
in Spanish, thus adding a character. In Chinese, a cat can be represented by
just one character:
Although much depends on the verbosity of the translator, general patterns
are noticeable. English text often expands when translated into European languages—from
approximately 15% in Spanish to as much as 35% in German (see Figure
7.3). Asian languages typically require fewer characters than their English
equivalents, yet you might not see much contraction; even though you're
working with fewer characters, they generally need to be displayed at a larger
point size to ensure legibility. Text expansion and contraction become particularly
acute when working with small amounts of text, such as with headlines or text
in navigation bars. For example, search translated into French becomes
"recherché," a 30% expansion.
Figure 7.3
The "news," when translated, either expands outside its allotted space
or leaves room to spare, depending on the language and the style of translation.
Think about how text expansion will affect your site's design and functionality.
Also alert your translators to places where space is tight on your site; they
can often provide more austere translations, but they can't work miracles.
If you don't give your web design enough room for text expansion, you'll
face a painful redesign when localizing for European markets. The best way to
avoid this problem is to follow Yahoo!'s lead and simply avoid embedding
text into graphics; if you must embed text, allot plenty of room for the inevitable
expansion.
Don't Forget the Back End - Some of the more complex text expansion
problems are not so visible. It's not uncommon to discover, after your
web site has launched, that users in Germany are having difficulty entering
their complete addresses (because the fields won't allow for additional
characters) or users in Japan are having problems inputting their names (because
the database won't accept Japanese characters). Always make sure that
you adapt the text fields to allow for longer names and other locale-specific
issues.
Address fields are particularly challenging. There are more than 100 different
address formats in use around the world (see sidebar "Return to Sender").
If you've developed a web order form for users in the U.S., you'll
have to make some immediate changes to accommodate users outside the U.S. Countries
such as the U.S., Canada, and Brazil have states, but most countries do not,
so you shouldn't require that the state field be filled out. Better yet,
offer a localized order form that does not include the state field. The ZIP
code field is also challenging. For starters, the term ZIP code is unique
to the U.S.; other countries call it a "postal code" or "postcode."
In the U.S., a ZIP code is either 5 or 9 digits, but in other countries, a postal
code can be anywhere from 3 to 7 digits and might include letters. And just
to keep you on your toes, some countries, such as Ireland, don't even use
a postal code. The technical issues of managing text in databases and web applications
are complex, and beyond the scope of this book. Just be aware that you'll
probably need to modify your databases to support new and longer input fields
and additional character sets.
Return to Sender - With 112 different address formats in
the world, odds are that you'll need to update your web site to accommodate
entering and displaying addresses for different countries. And details count.
For example, compare the following two addresses: the first for the U.S.,
the second for Germany.
JOHN DOE
55 COOLIDGE ST
BOSTON, MA 02151-4645
For the U.S., the standard is all uppercase letters, with the street number
coming before the street name and the ZIP code on the same line as the city
and state.
Herm
Gunther Meyer
Goethestrae 25
20002 HAMBURG
For the German address, the personal form of address, Herm, is written
on a separate line, the house number follows the street number, and an empty
line is inserted above the postal code.
Source: "A Guide to International Address Management," GRC Database
Information (http://www.grcdi.nl)
Thinking Globally - Page 2
Beyond Borders: Web Globalization Strategies
Global Architecture - Page 4
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