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Multilingual Web Design: Taking the Level of Design up a Notch

July 6, 2015

What makes a difference is what we call the “look and feel” of a website; in other words the stepping stone to a successful website. Honestly, it does not depend entirely on whether your motive is to make zillions of money or not, instead what matters is touching down the numerous aspects of the site’s design to actually meet those international requirements.

However, in order to bring your website in the eyes of viewers internationally you must consider making it properly localized before hitting the launch button.

In the end, no matter how we tend to advance ourselves, how many other languages we surround ourselves with, we will always work best with our mother tongue. Whatever languages we have heard during those growing years become a strong part of our foundation.

Similarly, the internet is not only in one language. Which definitely means, no, it is not all in English. This is a known fact to all. Given that you probably still will not look in deeply until it becomes a need for you. Wherever there is, an upside to a situation there is bound to be a catch at one corner or the other waiting for you to lose focus, the downside.

Okay got it! But what is a Multi-lingual Website again?

A website that tends to contain content written in more than one language, referred to as a multilingual website. It is simple as that.

To make things a bit easier think of this in a way that places you in someone else’s shoe giving you an insight of the possible difficulties they might face when they end up in your cultural context for a minute. Imagine what wonders possibly done with the simple change in language, a completely new affect over the aspect of your basic design!

No, Wait! Before You Start:

First off, a little research never hurt anybody. Try thinking it through until the end, and try to find extras ways to save yourself from wasting time on the same research that done now that you will do then. Hit up on your research skills and look up all the languages to pinpoint the one you want to include.

An important pointer to keep in your mind is if your design takes a tiny bit of space to begin with, once you alter languages, it might take up more to explaining an hence double the amount of characters to bring forward the desired explanation, example Spanish and German words are longer than an average word length of English. The best is to take help of design professionals just GO-Gulf web design team to handle such design tricks.

 My Primary Language

No matter what you do, you will need to set a primary language for your page in which it will open by default. This means majority of your content written needs to be in this language.

As a follow-up, what you need to find is the language code to correspond to that language; usually it consists of two letters, nevertheless, the usage of a four-letter code may be embraced further defining the language into different dialects.

Um, Wrong Language Code Dude

Although every little detail counts and there is absolutely no margin for any mistakes, this is the main part where you cannot mess up. Do not set the code incorrectly and do not forget to provide a primary code! It will be super close to impossible if someone is using a screen reader or Braille device to comprehend the content, as the primary language of the web is not defined the screen reading software in general will do nothing but read out the given content. Hence, it will not be of any benefit in the end.

It is all On the Users!

If I am the reader, please leave it to me to choose which language in which I would like to read the content. Whether I live in an English-speaking location or not, if I chose English I might know it that is why I opted for it.

Some websites for some odd reason would literally refuse the selection of a language that was not the native tongue in my location. Instead, it insisted on redirecting me to their primary or what they feel suits best according to my location. Moreover, this is by far the easiest way for a website to lose money.

You Have got to Own it

It seems obvious about now to state the need of keeping it consistent throughout, and by it, the language in all communication is what needs your attention. When a customer contacts you or signs up any responding email sent should contain the same language of their choice.

Now is the Time for Professional Help

Word of advice; do not trust an automatic translator service to do all the translations dirty work for you. Make sure the translation you get done is the best of the best. In this case, you should not even bother to worry about the cost. Just keep reassuring yourself that if you do invest money, you should feel the term “money well spent”.

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