Thinking i18n

While designing an application or website for multilingual capabilities or Internationalization (i18n), culture and context play a very significant role in the way people perceive and approach their interaction with an application or website.

Many offer services in various languages especially online marketers, retailers and financial products through translation in order to penetrate into local markets. During this process users find it difficult to navigate in these applications. Usability testing is one of the methods to refine the application by tracing problems; however a standard structure of usability testing becomes very rigorous in multilingual scenario and does not offer clear insights for evaluating such applications. Therefore it is important to design applications keeping in mind the internationalization aspect. Here are a few common suggestions to keep in mind while designing multilingual applications:

1. Language

Avoid the use of machine or automatic translators. Allow the application to address the language preferences of users.

2. Culture

Conduct user research to understand the cultural considerations for your target audience. Regardless of language used, the experience that you create must be culturally relevant to achieve an emotional connection with the audience.

For example: USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov has the same structure and look and feel, the Spanish site offers content , images and color scheme that resonates with the Hispanic community.

3. User Expectations

Manage user expectations by providing notice when a user is going to navigate to an English-only area, external website, or require a special program or software to view an application.

4. Toggle

Enable users to toggle between comparable content or features on the English and multilingual application if available.

One of the main goals of vendors offering applications and websites in multiple languages is to ensure their presence globally. These applications offer them a channel to reach local customers in an efficient and effective manner. As Steve Krug (author of the book - Don’t make me think!) puts it’s across that we use the website/applications for scanning, satisfying and muddling through and if people can’t find their way around it they would simply not use the system. Usability is a quality attribute of an application/website which measures the ease with which users interact with the website gauging the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which specified users achieve specified goals while using a software product.

Multilingualism adds another dimension to the usability of an application by incorporating the cultural context to which the user belongs. Only translation from one language to another doesn’t result in mapping of cultural norms, thus the user doesn’t feel at home with the application/website.

Following are some results from a web survey; the results are not exhaustive and have its own limitations, however the results would give an insight how people have been thinking internationalization.

News Websites

After surveying websites like Yahoo and BBC, you notice that news websites in general vary in design because of prevailing customization for each language. These sites are separate from each other in terms of layout, design and content due to extensive localization thus keeping the cultural context of users it is meant for. However due to extensive localization you find it difficult to correlate them across languages.

While testing these sites on different languages yahoo shows design obstruction when it comes to navigation, while BBC, the simplicity and consistency of the design aided ease and efficiency of navigation.

Note: I assumed the navigation in English language in each of the websites, as the benchmark, given that I am accustomed to reading news in English.

Ecommerce Applications

Ecommerce applications offer products and services to users. Amazon and eBay are websites that I considered for this category considering the fact that their presence is known on a large scale across the globe.

The common pattern found across these two applications was that both Amazon and eBay have two aspects viz.

i. Static information/content

ii. Content for a group of audiences

The static content typically the global content remains constant across all languages for the simple reason that their business is same across all audiences. Global content in Amazon and eBay typically comprises of product catalogs and account services which remain same in terms of information content and hence the content need not be drafted from scratch. Thus issues arising out of global content would be purely translation issues.

The distinctive feature of content for a group of audiences target specific needs. It is created keeping in mind specific needs of the users. For example, product reviews and other information that assist customers in their buying decision falls under local content because they are drafted by the local audience which incorporates cultural context.

After the above studies one can say that websites/application under a specific domain have similar patterns of localization based on the target audience. However one of the major aspects with respect to internationalization/multilingual is the cultural context. One needs to design keeping in mind the target audience. It could be only translating the key areas, or redesigning certain aspects of the application on how they behave or redesign the complete application.

Solutions for a better Interaction!

Came across an interesting video that examines the benefits and limitations in the current mouse-based windows-oriented interfaces.  Here is a solution proposed by 10GUI - some of the concepts here are amazing, however some of them I really have my doubts.

Enjoy the video!

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

Did you personalize your application?

Personalization involves using technology to accommodate the differences between individuals. Applications are personalized based on the characteristics (interests, social category, context, etc) of an individual. (Wiki)

The concept of personalization when introduced took a while, but made a major impact in every industry. Today you find Websites, applications, devices, gadgets personalized. But the question still remains how easy are they to personalize. Today we see personalized dashboards (most common) or ways to configure your application, gadgets and websites to a certain extent which gives a feeling to the end user that yes its 'Personalized' for me.

But how easy it is to personalize? Applications today are personalized but to the extent where the Dashboard shows data that is relevant to you, allows to change shortcuts that is accepted by you, but what about personalizing the application to show data how and what you prefer easily?

Consider a scenario: Bruce (CEO) and Amanda (Sr. Manager) work for a retail company that deals in tools in Wisconsin Madison. Bruce started the company way back in 1985 with retail chains in 6 different states in the US. Later in 1996 he realized the power of the internet and started selling tools on ebay. Later in 2000, Bruce decided to go completely online with only one retail store in Madison. Amanda an MBA works closely with Bruce on maintaining the inventory to ensure they never run out of stock. Both of them have the same task - inventory forecasting and to do this they need multiple reports. So you build an application that gives them multiple reports in various formats - grids, graphs, pie charts and trend lines.

It looks simple when you build the application keeping Bruce and Amanda in mind since both of them want the same data. But what we miss at times is Bruce wants to look at data in a grid. Since his early years Bruce has been looking at inventory on print outs and excel. He is not comfortable with graphs and on the other hand, Amanda analyzes data based on graphs, she looks at bar graphs and trend lines extensively and for further details she takes a look at the data in the grid. So the application meets the requirements of both but both have to make an effort to get their data in respective formats on their screens.

This is where you would want to personalize. Allowing Bruce and Amanda to set their default views the very first time they access a report would be ideal. The moment they save their settings for a report they always open in the same view, with other options at low priority but still accessible.

It’s irritating rather confusing to show a list of massive settings and ask the user to personalize them even without showing them what the impact is.

Is Feature Prioritization a priority?

Any product/project development has a set of features that has to be developed at the end of the day. It is important to have the list/set of features however it isn’t a priority to prioritize them. This is a mistake that a lot of Business Analyst and Product Managers run into… for simple reason because its risk free. At the end one can blame it to the customer since the customer was the one who wanted the features.

One needs to understand what features need to be added to a product to meet customer needs by not prioritizing the features but to have a much broader view. One needs to know the underlying customer needs to the business model to the product road map to the go-to-market strategy. The ultimate goal for a product manager or business analyst should be Return on Investment.

Unfortunately, it is all too easy for product managers and business analyst today to fall into feature-focused development mode, especially for web applications and those developed using Agile methods.

A simple exercise can prevent help one break a trap. Ask yourself the age old and basic questions repeated time and again

1. What is the purpose?
2. What problem does it solve?
3. Who is my target Customer/Persona?
4. What are the alternatives to solve this problem?
5. How important it is to solve this problem?
6. Does this support the product strategy and roadmap?

It is easy and tempting to prioritize features and get the work done with a few extensions to your deadline; however it is important to identify the right feature to have a better Return on Investment.

Usability Tips - Your Home page

Home page is an organisation's face as many would have quoted and should have the most important information or let me stress once again MOST IMPORTANT information and not all the information. The home page needs to strike a blance between showing the range of information and simplifying the content to ensure that the majority of customers can easily embark on the most common tasks.

We all have guidelines and standards, however some of the things that you could keep in mind while making a wacky and impressive home page:

• Clearly focused user's tasks
• Too much content in your site - provide a search
• Provide CLEAR and visible navigation
• Make sure the Navigation is ordered logically or in a task oriented manner
• Navigation should match your design of the home page. Too much of jazz in your navigation is mistaken for advertisements.
• Useful and most important information should be available form the home page in a click
• Make sure your link in the home page have the most important keywords in the begining

So go ahead, get CREATIVE with your home page designs and keep these few pointers while you design your website.  

"If you find a home page interesting post it here in the comments section!"

Is User Experience crucial part of SEO?

There has been a lot of discussion going on whether UX or User eXperience is a crucial part of SEO or Search Engine Optimization.

If we consider the definition behind these two terms (Wiki):

User eXperience design, most often abbreviated UX, but sometimes UE, is a term used to describe the overarching experience a person has as a result of their interactions with a particular product or service, it's delivery, and related artifacts, according to their design.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.

So after the definitions why would one consider User Experience even part of SEO? Lets consider a simple example here about 404 Pages!

404 Pages have been the nemesis of internet users and are probably one of the most overlooked aspects of a website. Personally, it is annoying arriving at a website and being served a page stating, "Page not Found". So the User eXperience is awful and for any SEO a 404 page is a nightmare, since a typical 404 error page has a high likelihood of driving your visitors away. Well the good news is that there is a solution that will improve the user experience and will ensure that your visitors stay on your site. A custom 404 page can do that trick.

Alternatives - Visitors are obviously looking for something on your website before they stumbled upon an error. Give alternatives on the custom 404 page.

I am sure you can figure out alternatives for your website.

There is absolutely no reason to label your page "404 Error". The only thing the users know about a 404 error is nothing nor do they care. Its a technical jargon, and don't use it to scare away your visitors.

Google is intelligent and so are other web crawlers - A missing page (404 error) is obviously going to get your page rankings down.

Some Interesting and creative collection of Error 404 Pages!

Tagging Nicky - Thanks for suggesting the topic!

Design or Usability?

What attracts users to a website? Is this the thrill of experiencing something new or a journey to an unconquered territory? Does this experience account usability? According to Wikipedia usability means "the goal of user interface design is to make the users interaction experience as simple as intuitive e as possible". Does graphics help or is it better to enhance usability?

A recent survey by Forrester for the Best and Worst of Site Design cut across industries to measure customer experience on the web. Of the 20 individual firms evaluated, an amazing 19 failed! The overall user experience scores ranged from fair to poor. The best sites barely touched passable customer satisfaction levels.

Does aesthetic appeal work?

If interfaces are sore points in most usability issue, does it mean we stick to a strictly plain and purely usable site?

Well not necessary! Good aesthetics helps in creating first impression. The visual appeal of a site inevitably lures users; however an appealing interface that is not usable loses its charm and cannot sustain interest.

Following some usability rules would help creating that first impression.

Have a Theme

It is important to identify and implementing an appropriate theme into your website. This helps creating a positive, responsive and receptive state of mind in the user.

Color Scheme

colors should allows you to give a message you wish to communicate to the users. Demography and sites objectives help defining the color scheme.

Target User

Helps you know the users "technical comfort level"

Goal

Identify your goals and make sure you never loose track of it.

Intuitive

It is important to have an educated customer at the end of his/her website experience.

Ensure ease of Navigation

Provide Instant Feedback

Every action should give a response.

All the above usability rules would come with some obstacles. Most of them are because they are not well thought over interface designs.

Heavy Pages - thanks to "extraordinary" graphics designs

Navigational ambiguity - users don't want to solve a maze

Overwhelming interfaces - keep the pages to the point.

Lack of focus - keep your goals in mind and don’t lose track of it

Whatever be the motive on which the site was conceptualized, a visitor to your site is a potential investor of time, money or both.

Hiding mistakes Creatively!

I still remember my days as a developer, I never took care of Error 404, Error 500, etc till the very end, when the UAT came back saying the application is broken. A mere small setting took care of those.

I realize now the importance of informing users, when my blog and my photo stream crashed because of errors and broken link.

Well, its never a great experience to have that page in front of you, users either click the home page back and to a search or just close the browser. Like I do most of the times on MSDN. I just closed the browser and went back to Google to search some other resource.

So what do I do, I go and explore a few websites and I found this very interesting website which lists out Error 404 designs. Now that's creative, and I definitely am not losing my patience when I see one of those.

Pattern Tap - 404 Pages - Collection

Pattern Tap is one great website or say a repository. Check the Categories and I am sure you would feel overwhelmed as I did.

My personal Favorite