An Introduction to the Internationalisation of econtent

Transcription

1 An Introduction to the Internationalisation of econtent A course provided by the Localisation Research Centre (LRC) as part of the EU-funded ELECT project

2 Table of Contents I Table of Contents Introduction Introduction to the Course Definition of Fundamental Concepts econtent Internationalisation Locale Localisation Overview of Internationalisation The Case for Internationalisation Deciding on a Strategy Adapt Translate Remove Replace Course Map Characters and Encoding Writing for International Audiences Formatting Conventions Cultural Issues File Formats Typical I18n Problems Summary and Review Exercise... 8 Characters and Encoding Introduction Characters Bit, Byte and Double-Byte The Difference between Characters and Glyphs Fonts Writing Systems Ideographic Syllabic Alphabetic Directionality Character Sets Character Encoding Rendering Characters Important Encoding Standards... 19

3 II Table of Contents ASCII ISO Other Encoding Standards Unicode Summary and Review Exercise Writing for International Audiences Introduction Minimise the Word Count Terminology Create a Glossary of Terms Be Consistent Avoid the use of Jargon Avoid the use of Acronyms and Abbreviations Avoid Religious and Political References Grammar Use Simple Sentence Structures Use the Active Voice Avoid Phrasal and Modal Verbs Use Positive Language Avoid a Telegraphic Style of Writing Avoid the use of Long Noun Strings Style Country-Specific Conventions Avoid Indirect References to Specific Countries Use International Examples Avoid the use of Humour Avoid the use of Clichés and Slang Additional Elements Summary and Review Exercise Formatting Conventions Introduction Overview Numbers Times Dates Currencies Units of Measurement Address Formats... 40

4 Table of Contents III 4.9 Telephone Numbers Summary and Review Exercise Cultural Issues Introduction Colours Graphics Graphics with Embedded Text Graphical Metaphors Flow of Information Folder Setup Symbols Animals Body Parts Flags Religious or Political Symbols Gestures Greetings Thumbs Up Representations of People Race Gender Dress Code Deeper Cultural Issues Summary and Review Exercise File Formats Introduction Markup Languages Procedural Markup Descriptive Markup SGML Document Type and Document Type Definition (DTD) HTML XML Merits of XML XLIFF Summary and Review Exercise... 62

5 IV Table of Contents Typical I18n Problems Introduction Web Forms Text Expansion Technology Legal Issues Yahoo Case Study Marketing Techniques Privacy Restricting Types of Online Businesses Enforcing Online Contracts Domain Names Developing an Internationalisation Checklist Summary and Review Exercise Additional Resources Books...73 Web Sites...73

6 Introduction The Internet provides an ideal forum for businesses wishing to expand into the global market.

7 2 Introduction 1.1 Introduction to the Course At the time of its inception, the Internet was purely an American phenomenon, which was only concerned with the English language. In recent years, however, the number of international users who access the World Wide Web for business, research and entertainment purposes has increased significantly. The Internet is an ideal mechanism for reaching a global audience. However, achieving international success on the Internet, is not as straightforward as simply creating a web site and putting it online. Indeed, entering the global marketplace can be overwhelming. When you consider that the world has 24 different time zones, over 6,000 languages and countless distinct cultural and ethnic groups, you should begin to envisage the potential challenges that internationalisation can present. As with any other medium, there are technical, linguistic and cultural issues that need to be identified in order to deal effectively with an international audience. This one-day course is designed to introduce you to the basic issues that you need to be aware of if you wish to create internationalised econtent. We assume from the outset that you have had little or no previous knowledge of internationalisation, or indeed, localisation. This course is divided into six main areas, each of which will be described briefly at the end of this section. By the end of the course, you should be familiar with the key issues involved in internationalisation and be able to design a basic web site that will attract visitors from various locations around the world. 1.2 Definition of Fundamental Concepts To begin with, it is essential that you are familiar with some of the key concepts, which we will refer to throughout both this course and the course on localisation econtent The term econtent refers to any material that is made available in electronic form. This definition encompasses a great deal, from web sites, to PDF documents, right through to material distributed using mobile and handheld devices. However, for the purposes of this course, we will assume that the term econtent refers to web-based material. Essentially, we will be talking about typical web sites.

8 econtent Localisation - An Introduction Internationalisation The term internationalisation refers to the process of adapting a product or its contents so that it can deal effectively with multiple languages, writing directions, cultural conventions and so forth, without the need for redesign. Internationalisation, often abbreviated to i18n, is a prerequisite for successful localisation. During this course, you will learn how to create internationalised econtent that can be accessed and understood anywhere in the world. This will involve designing an interface that is globally inoffensive. Ideally, your web site will be able to accommodate the various technical, linguistic and cultural conventions that exist around the world. If your web site is internationalised correctly, and users are relatively competent in your native language, there should be no barrier to prevent them from using your site Locale The term locale is used to represent both a language and a specific geographical location where that language is spoken. For instance, English (US) and English (UK) are two distinct locales. While people in both regions are native speakers of the English language, there are a number of linguistic and cultural differences that exist between the two Localisation Localisation involves taking content and adapting it both linguistically and culturally to suit a specific target market. A localised product should look and feel as though it was created by a native of the target locale. Localisation is often abbreviated to l10n. Since we are providing a separate course on econtent localisation, we will not delve too deeply into the topic at this stage. However, you should be aware that if a web site is fully internationalised, localisation will be a very straightforward process. 1.3 Overview of Internationalisation In its infancy, the Internet was completely dominated by the English language and by American culture. However, an increased international participation rate, has made the Internet an unprecedented source for accessing information in multiple languages, originating from virtually every corner of the globe. At the end of 1999, it was reported that 96% of all ecommerce sites were written in English. If we examine the latest statistics on the use of language online (See 1), however, we see that only 36.5% of the global online population are native English speakers. The total number of online

9 4 Introduction users is 619 million. Therefore, there are million users who are non-native English speakers. The needs of these users must be accommodated if the Internet is to have a serious influence on the worldwide population. Figure 1: Statistics taken from Global Reach relating to the Native Languages of Online Users An interesting point to note in 1, is that the percentage of European language speakers (excluding English) who are currently online is 35.5% The Case for Internationalisation It is clear that the Internet has a huge role to play in everyday life. By creating a fully internationalised web site, you will create an impact on the global market. By deciding to sell your products or services on an international level, you will have the potential to significantly increase your customer base and, in turn, your revenue. This is especially true, if you have saturated your domestic market. For instance, in 1998, over 60% of Microsoft s profits accumulated from markets outside of the US, mainly from non-english speaking countries.

10 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 5 It may not be necessary to provide multilingual versions of your web site. At the same time, however, you will have to consider the needs of international users when designing your site. These needs include clear, unambiguous text, as well as culturally-neutral design and graphics. 1.4 Deciding on a Strategy If you plan to target an international audience, you will have to make changes to your existing econtent to reflect this decision. In an ideal world, you should begin the process of internationalisation at the same time as you begin to create your original content. However, you may already have established a web site. In this case, you will need to analyse your existing econtent and choose to adopt one or more of the following strategies: Adapt You will need to assess whether or not your econtent is suitable for a global market. Typically, you may have material that would be appropriate for an international audience with some degree of alteration. You need to determine how the material that you have already created, can be adapted so that it is not specific to any particular market Translate Translation forms part of the localisation process. Therefore, it is not actually an internationalisation issue. However, if you internationalise your econtent correctly, the process of translation will be facilitated greatly. Online users have come to expect econtent material to be presented in the language of their choice. For this reason, you may choose to translate at least some parts of your content. You should be aware that users may not be prepared to remain your site, if the material is not available in their native language Remove If parts of your econtent are country-specific, the best option may actually be to remove these elements once you choose to cater for an international audience. This strategy is often adopted with web forms. Imagine, for example, an online form that prompts users to enter their postal address, in order to receive details of an upcoming conference. One of the fields is labelled State. However, instead of leaving a blank space for the user to type in the name of the state where they live, the form provides a drop-down list, which only contains the names of the US states and offers no alternative for international users. This feature

11 6 Introduction should be removed from an internationalised site, as it would be impossible to include every state in the world in a drop-down list! Replace In certain areas of your web site, you may need to replace existing content with material that is more appropriate for an international audience. This option is often selected to make the overall look-and-feel of the site more international. For instance, if your site features images, symbols or icons that are specific to one culture, it will be necessary to replace them with more suitable alternatives. 1.5 Course Map This course consists of six main sections, each of which deals with a distinct aspect of internationalisation. We will discuss various linguistic, cultural and technical issues that you need to be aware of, if you wish to create fully internationalised econtent. The course is broken down into the following sections: Characters and Encoding Writing for International Audiences Formatting Conventions Cultural Issues File Formats Typical I18n Problems A brief overview of each of these topics is given below to highlight how the remainder of the course will be structured Characters and Encoding People all over the world use natural language to communicate with others. However, there are over 6,000 different languages used around the world. This linguistic diversity is particularly evident in the written form of language. The main differences are in the characters and scripts used in various countries. Representing all of these traditional writing systems in a digital format can be problematic, since computers are unable to interpret natural language directly. Instead, characters must be encoded into numeric values, which computers are more familiar with.

12 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 7 This section of the course deals with the technical realities of the multilingual Internet. We will discuss the steps that need to be taken to ensure that econtent can handle the requirements of multiple languages and writing scripts Writing for International Audiences Internationalisation does not involve creating multiple language versions of your web site. However, it is not necessary to translate the text displayed on your user interface, in order to make the site more appealing to international audiences. What you need to bear in mind is that not all of the people who access your web site will be native speakers of your language. Therefore, you will need to adopt a writing style that caters for their needs. International visitors will be encouraged to remain on your site if the content is clear and concise and if it is free of country-specific references. Basically, they should feel that the content is relevant to their needs. By keeping your writing relatively simple, you are also facilitating the work of translators, if you decide to localise your econtent in the future. This section of the course will offer advice on how to write effectively for a global audiences Formatting Conventions In virtually every web site, there are a number of items that need to be formatted in one way or another. Typical examples of such items are dates and times, currencies, numbers, measurements, addresses and telephone numbers. The conventions used to format these items differ significantly from locale to locale. It should also be noted that these formatting rules are independent of language. For instance, a date may be formatted very differently in the US than it would be in the UK. By including formatting conventions on your web site that are not internationally recognised, visitors can easily misinterpret some pieces of vital information. This section documents how items are displayed in various locales and offers recommendations to accommodate for the differences that exist Cultural Issues Both internationalisation and localisation frequently focus on the linguistic and technical efforts involved, while cultural issues are overlooked. However, you ideally want international users to feel just as comfortable on your web site, as they would on a site created in their own locale.

13 8 Introduction If you are to achieve this objective, you must recognise the importance of culture. You must acknowledge the fact that people from different parts of the world often have opposing beliefs, attitudes and values that are demonstrated in various forms. For instance, different cultures associate different meanings with individual colours, symbols, graphics and gestures. This section will reveal a number of cultural taboos from various parts of the globe. You will need to exclude these taboos from your web site or risk offending your international visitors File Formats A wide range of markup languages have been developed, since the advent of the Internet in the 1990s. This section traces the progression of some of the main markup languages, such as SGML, HTML and XML. We will focus in particular on the internationalisation features of these formats and highlight the merits of each. In addition to the file formats mentioned above, a new standard, XLIFF, has been developed specifically for the localisation industry in recent years. We will discuss how this standard can impact both internationalisation and localisation. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we will not have the opportunity to develop any web pages with XML or XLIFF. Instead, we will use HTML for the practical parts of the course Typical I18n Problems The final section of the course will deal with some of the typical challenges that can arise during the internationalisation process. We will offer suggestions on how to avoid any potential difficulties that you may face when internationalising your web site. The areas covered include text expansion and international legislation. It is important to note however, that virtually all of the problems, which are mentioned both in this section and throughout the course, can be prevented, if you design your original econtent files with internationalisation in mind. 1.6 Summary and Review Exercise Web sites, by their very nature, are internationally accessible. However, in order to truly appeal to visitors from around the globe, your site must be as linguistically and culturally neutral as possible. The aim of this course is to introduce you to the basic challenges presented by econtent internationalisation and to provide you with some solutions for overcoming these challenges.

14 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 9 Each section of the course will conclude with an exercise. This will give you an opportunity to apply the knowledge that you have acquired to some practical, hands-on work. Since this is the first chapter, here is an easy one to start with... Exercise: Examine the sample web page provided. Can you spot any items that could cause confusion for an international audience? We realise that you are very much beginners at this stage. However, by the end of this course you should easily be able to spot potential internationalisation problems on any given web site.

15 10 Introduction

16 Characters and Encoding Even if you only intend to make material available in one language, there are still issues that you need to be aware of when considering how text will be displayed.

17 12 Characters and Encoding 2.1 Introduction Natural language is used as the primary means of communication in almost every country in the world. However, not all people speak the same language. In fact there are currently over 6,000 languages in use across the globe. The diversity becomes even more apparent in the written representation of these spoken languages. First of all, written languages are based on very different scripts. They use different characters and even the direction in which the text is written, is not consistent. All of these differences present themselves before we even consider how to write electronically, i.e. how to enter and display text using a computer. When the Internet was first developed, it only catered for the English language and, more specifically, for US English. However, in recent years, the number of non-american and non-english speaking users has increased significantly, as illustrated in the previous section. This has meant that developers have had to find ways of accommodating the specific requirements of other written languages. The main problem that developers face in this sphere is that computers cannot process natural languages directly. Instead, they only understand complex numeric codes. For this reason, character sets have been encoded using ordered numeric codes. The computer will use these codes to interpret the data that an individual person inputs and, in turn, it will display the correct characters on screen. In other words, when these codes are used effectively, it is possible for each natural language to be represented accurately by computers. In this section, we will elaborate on the following topics: Characters Fonts Writing Systems Directionality Character Sets Character Encoding Important Encoding Standards 2.2 Characters A piece of text is comprised of various characters. Characters are the most basic logical components of written language that have semantic value. Basically, a character is a single textual symbol. It can be a letter, a number, a punctuation mark, a currency symbol or any other symbol that forms part of a written language. Some examples include: $ % / g 7.

18 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 13 The number of characters used by each language varies greatly. For example, the English language requires approximately 60 characters for everyday use, while the equivalent Chinese figure is over 50,000. Countless differences exist between characters. For example, in Arabic countries, certain characters change shape according to their position in a word. In addition, some characters do not exist on their own. Instead, they display above or below the characters that come before them. Unfortunately, it is not feasible for us to document all of the variations here, since this course is only intended to familiarise you with the basics of internationalisation Bit, Byte and Double-Byte As mentioned already, characters are stored in the computer s memory as numeric codes. However, not all characters require the same amount of storage space. A byte is the minimal unit of storage used within a computer architecture. The majority of characters can be represented by 1 byte, which is equal to 8 bits. However, some written languages have such an abundance of characters and these characters are so complex that they each require 16 bits, or 2 bytes, of storage space. An example of a language that uses these double-byte characters is Chinese (both Traditional and Simplified). Figure 2 below represents some double-byte characters, written in Traditional Chinese. Figure 2: Extract from the Hong Kong version of Yahoo The Difference between Characters and Glyphs In computing, each character can be displayed in a variety of ways. For this reason, a distinction is drawn between a character and a glyph. Characters are defined abstractly, without any specific visible shape. A glyph is the graphical representation or shape of a character.

19 14 Characters and Encoding For instance, A A and a are three different glyphs, each of which represent the same character. However, a, b and c are three distinct characters. In order to understand the difference between the two terms more clearly, examine Figure 3 and Figure 4 below. Figure 3: A List of Unique Characters Figure 4: Glyphs which could be used to represent one of the above Characters Tip When we refer to characters during this course, we are only concerned with the abstract character, not with how it might be displayed in a given font. 2.3 Fonts A font is used to control the appearance of a character set, by displaying each individual element of the set in a particular shape or style. An example of a commonly used font is Arial. The difference between a font and a character set is very similar to the distinction that exists between a glyph and a character. In fact, a font could be described as a collection of glyphs. Fonts can often be displayed in a variety of sizes and styles. For instance, you could instruct the computer to use the Times New Roman font, size 12 and to apply the bold style. You should note, however, that certain written languages, do not use any stylistic effects. For example, neither Simplified nor Traditional Chinese, use the italics style. This is because it distorts characters and makes readers unsure of what character is actually intended. You should be careful when selecting a font for your econtent. The reason for this is that each font is only designed to display a certain character set. If you choose the incorrect font for your econtent files, certain characters may be displayed incorrectly. For instance, if you design your original web site using the Tahoma font, you will experience problems if you try to localise your site into another language such as Traditional Chinese.

20 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 15 Tahoma can only represent characters that are typically used in Western languages and is not able to display complex Chinese characters. Some Microsoft fonts that are suitable for Traditional Chinese include Arial Unicode MS and PMingLiu. When choosing your original font, ensure that it is supported in other languages. Otherwise, you will face problems if you choose to localise your web site in the future. 2.4 Writing Systems Scripts are a fundamental part of writing systems. They can be defined as a collection of symbols used to represent textual information in one or more writing system(s). A script may be used for only one specific language, such as Korean Hangul, but frequently, a script can represent several languages. For instance, English, French and Italian all use the Latin script. Other examples of scripts include Greek and Cyrillic. A writing system is a set of rules for using one or more script(s) to write a particular language. The rules can apply to grammar, spelling or punctuation. In some countries, such as Japan, there is only one spoken language, but multiple scripts are used to represent it in written form. The Japanese writing system, for example, combines Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji and Roman scripts. There are three types of writing systems, namely ideographic, syllabic and alphabetic Ideographic This is based on ideograms, whereby every symbol has a specific meaning that is not related to its pronunciation. These writing systems are used with Chinese and Japanese and typically contain several thousand distinct symbols. A point to note is that ideographic writing systems do not use a space character to separate words, which means that detecting where words begin and end is not as straightforward as in other languages Syllabic In syllabic writing systems, each symbol represents a syllable. The number of symbols varies from one writing system to the next, but it is generally less than a thousand. The Japanese Hiragana and Katakana scripts have adopted the syllabic writing system.

21 16 Characters and Encoding Alphabetic In alphabetic systems, each symbol or letter approximately matches a phoneme. A phoneme is the smallest unit of speech in any given language. Most alphabets have between 30 and 50 discrete symbols or letters. English uses the alphabetic writing system. Note that most written languages do not use a pure set of either ideographic, syllabic or alphabetic symbols, but each does use one set of symbols predominantly above the others. 2.5 Directionality Writing systems can differ in their directionality. In English and many other writing systems, the letters are written from left to right, while the lines progress from top to bottom. Japanese, Chinese and Korean may be written in this form, but traditionally they are written vertically. The characters flow from the top of the page to the bottom, with lines advancing from right to left. Semetic languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew are written horizontally from right to left, and top to bottom. However, Arabic numerals and non-arabic text are written from left to right. For this reason, these are known as bi-directional languages. Figure 5 is taken from an Arabic web site. It clearly illustrates how directionality can affect the user interface. The navigation bar, typically found on the lefthand side of the screen, is displayed on the right and the entire screen is oriented to allow visitors to read from right to left. Note that the date and time, shown at the top of the screen, is displayed correctly, from left to right. Figure 5: Extract from the Arabic version of the BBC s web site

22 econtent Localisation - An Introduction Character Sets A character set is a collection of all of the possible characters that can be used in the writing system of a particular language, or group of languages. There are many different character sets in existence. When designing your web site, you should allow for the display and input of various character sets. For instance, the Latin character set caters for most Western languages and is based on the standard Roman alphabet. However, most European languages contain a variety of additional characters which include diacritics, such as é, ç or ö. The Latin character set also incorporates these diacritics and all of the other required characters such as numerals, punctuation marks and other symbols. Earlier, we discussed the idea of double-byte characters. Character sets that contain these special characters are known as double-byte character sets (DBCS). The elements of a character set are not ordered and are not associated with any specific numeric values. The abbreviation charset is sometimes used to refer to a character set. 2.7 Character Encoding As mentioned previously, computers do not understand natural languages. In order to allow computers to store, display and manipulate any natural language, the writing system must be encoded. Character encoding is defined as the process of mapping characters from a character set to a series of unique numeric codes. As a result, each character used in a particular character set, including numbers, punctuation and other required symbols, will be assigned an exclusive numerical value. These codes are then stored in the code page of each computer. Most alphabet-based writing systems use 8-bit numeric codes. However, languages such as Chinese and Japanese literally contain thousands of characters in their writing systems. Therefore, an 8-bit encoding system is inadequate. Instead, a 16-bit or double-byte encoding system is required. Before examining any individual character encoding standards, we must consider what actually happens when you hit a key on your keyboard, i.e. we need to analyse how this action results in a character being displayed or rendered on your screen.

23 18 Characters and Encoding Rendering Characters Typing characters on a computer may appear deceptively simple. You press a key labeled A and the character A appears on the screen. However, the following steps actually take place behind the scenes: 1 You hit a key on your keyboard. 2 The keyboard sends the numeric code of the specific key or character to the computer s processor. 3 The processor looks up the character encoding, specified in the computer s code page, to determine which character is represented by the particular numeric code. 4 The processor then sends this data to the display device and the appropriate character appears on your screen. Again, this process may appear to be relatively straightforward, but problems can occur because different computers use different encodings. Therefore, if you type up a document on your computer and it to a colleague working in another country, you should not assume that the document will display on their screen in exactly the same manner as you intended. Your colleague s machine may use a different encoding, which will cause certain characters to be displayed incorrectly. The reason for this is that different encodings or code pages frequently use the same numeric code to represent different characters. So, for example, the numeric code for œ and the code for could be identical in two different encodings. This is an extremely important issue for the designers of international web sites, since they wish their econtent files to be rendered in the same way, regardless of the physical location of their visitors. Designers must specify the encoding that they wish to be used to render their web sites. Figure 6 and Figure 7 below illustrate the importance of selecting the correct encoding standard for your site. The extract in Figure 6 is encoded in ISO , the de facto encoding standard for Western European languages, while in Figure 7, the same extract is encoded in Shift-JIS, a Japanese standard. Note that all of the accented characters are rendered incorrectly in Figure 7. Figure 6: Extract from the Le Monde web site, encoded in ISO

24 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 19 Figure 7: The same extract, encoded in Shift-JIS 2.8 Important Encoding Standards We will now highlight some of the most commonly used encoding standards and investigate whether it is possible to solve the problems mentioned above, by using a single, universal encoding standard that is capable of representing all natural languages. We will briefly chart the migration from ASCII through to the most recent encoding standard, Unicode. An interesting fact is that the concept of finding ways to encode characters is not a new one, nor is it restricted to the computer era. An obvious example, outside of computing, is Morse code ASCII ASCII is an acronym that stands for the American Standard Code for Information Interchange. This standard was first published in 1964 and was the first widely used way of representing text in computer memory and of transferring data between computers. The ASCII model was based on a 7-bit byte, where each byte represented a single character. As mentioned earlier, a byte comprises 8 bits. However, one bit was reserved for error correction and could not be used to carry data. As a result, this character encoding had space for 128 characters (2 7 = 128). Given that 33 of the available spaces had internal uses, this left only 95 available spaces, which could be used to display characters. This was sufficient to cover all of English language characters, but was not suitable for the vast majority of the world s languages, which use many more characters. It is therefore not appropriate for the modern multilingual computing world.

25 20 Characters and Encoding ISO-8859 When computers started to enter markets outside of the US, it was deemed necessary to adapt ASCII to provide for the characters used by other languages. In order to accomplish this, the ISO-8859 series of character encodings was developed. This series comprises 15 separate character encodings. Each encoding is based on an 8-bit byte, which can handle 256 characters (2 8 ). In each case, the code positions from are identical to those used in ASCII, positions are reserved for control characters and the remaining positions vary to display the characters required by different languages. Table 1 below illustrates the scripts and languages that are respresented by the various character encodings of the ISO-8859 family. Table 1: ISO-8859 Character Encodings ISO Name Script Languages Covered ISO Latin 1 Western European languages ISO Latin 2 Eastern European languages ISO Latin 3 Southern European languages ISO Latin 4 Northern European languages ISO Cyrillic Russian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian ISO Arabic Arabic ISO Greek Greek ISO Hebrew Hebrew ISO Latin 5 Turkish ISO Latin 6 Northern European languages (combines Latin 1 and 4) ISO Thai Thai ISO Reserved Has not been defined ISO Latin 7 Baltic languages ISO Latin 8 Celtic languages ISO Latin 9 Western European languages (replaces Latin 1 and adds support for additional characters including the euro ( ) symbol) ISO Latin 10 Eastern European Languages (replaces Latin 2 and adds support for additional characters including the euro ( ) symbol) While the ISO-8859 encoding standards cover a large amount of languages, it is clear that problems still remain. Since the standards are 8-bit, they are restricted to 256 characters. This means that there is a need for several different code pages. Remember that it is only possible to use one code page at any one time. Therefore, there will still be great difficulty involved in transferring information between computers that use different code pages.

26 econtent Localisation - An Introduction Other Encoding Standards The following 16-bit encoding standards are also used widely in different parts of the world to represent double-byte character sets: Big5 (for Traditional Chinese) GB (for Simplified Chinese) Shift-JIS (for Japanese) Unfortunately, it is not possible to discuss all of these encoding standards in detail. 2.9 Unicode At this stage, you should be aware that there are a huge range of character encoding standards to choose from, each of which has been developed independently. The encodings comprise different sets of characters, which inevitably leads to problems. In many cases, there are instances where two encodings use different numbers to represent the same character. In addition, encodings use the same number for two different characters. For example, Figure 8 illustrates the two very different characters that are found at position 255 in the ISO character encoding, used for Western languages and the Russian 1251 encoding respectively. Figure 8: Different Characters found at position 255 in IS) and Russian 1251 The result of this is that when messages are passed between computers, characters are often corrupted. This does not pose a problem if you work in isolation, but if you are designing a web site for international use, it will certainly create a challenge. If you wish to display multiple languages on a single web page, you will face additional problems, since each of these languages may require a different encoding. Unicode has been developed in an attempt to resolve these issues. It aims to unify all of the existing character encoding systems into a single standard, which will be capable of representing every language in the world. It will allow designers to use unique, unambiguous numeric codes for every character, in virtually every writing system in the world, from Arabic to Chinese. Unicode is a 16-bit encoding system, that currently provides more than 96,000 possible numeric codes. Work on this standard is ongoing and will not be complete for some time. However, already, it has been extraordinarily successful in gaining industry acceptance. It has been adopted by industry leaders such as Apple, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Sun and many others. Unicode

27 22 Characters and Encoding is also required by modern standards such as XML and Java. It is now supported by virtually all operating systems and web browsers. In order to use Unicode to encode your web pages, you need to use the UTF-8 encoding. The exercise at the end of this chapter explains how to do this. Your internationalised econtent files should be encoded using Unicode (or UTF-8) to ensure that all characters will display correctly, regardless of where your visitors are located. It will also allow you to include different languages on the same web page. The emergence of the Unicode Standard, and the availability of tools supporting it, are among the most significant recent global software technology trends Summary and Review Exercise Increasingly, the people of the world are discovering that instead of reducing linguistic diversity, the Internet has the potential to allow them to use the language of their choice to communicate with others. This discovery creates a number of technical challenges for the developers of web sites. They must now be accutely aware of how natural language is interpreted and rendered by computers and ensure that their sites are capable of handling multilingual, multi-directional text. This section illustrated the differences that exist between the various written languages used around the world and higlighted ways to accommodate these differences. Exercise: Open any web site, which contains text written in your native language. Examine what encoding the web site uses. You can do this by selecting Source from the View menu in your web browser. Then look for the meta tag near the top of the file, that includes the charset attribute. The charset meta tag for Western European languages, for example, will read as follows: <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" Content="text/ html;charset=iso "> Change the Charset value to Shift-JIS or BIG5. Save the file on your desktop. Open the file in your web browser to assess whether the characters are still displayed correctly. When you have finished, go back into the source code and this time change the Charset Value to UTF-8. Save the changes. Open the file in your web browser once more and see if this has had any effect on the characters.

28 Writing for International Audiences All visitors to your web site will ultimately view your econtent through the lens of their own language, culture and norms.

29 24 Writing for International Audiences 3.1 Introduction When developing your original econtent, it is crucial that all textual information is written in an international style that will transcend culture. As we have mentioned already, by making information available on the Internet, regardless of the language used, you are in fact making it internationally accessible. Therefore, you will not be able to predict the nationality or the native language of your online visitors. While visitors may not originate from the same country as you, they may speak your language. They will be encouraged to remain on your site if the information on your site is clear, linguistically straightforward and free of specific cultural references. Basically, even if you are not considering localisation, it is always a good idea to make the language on your web site as unambiguous as possible, so that the information displayed will be understood by non-native speakers. If, however, you do plan to develop multiple language versions of your econtent in the future, taking this initiative from the beginning will save you a considerable amount of time and money. Obviously if translators are presented with straightforward and consistent source material, their job will be made significantly easier. There are a number of steps that you can take to ensure that your material is fully internationalised, so that it will not cause any difficulties during the localisation process. In this section, we will go through these steps, which cover the areas of: Terminology Grammar Style Country-specific Conventions 3.2 Minimise the Word Count Generally, the translation stage of the localisation process is based on the number of words that need to be translated, i.e. the total word count. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that if the total number of words used in the source code can be reduced, the cost of translation and localisation will also be reduced. Internationalised econtent should be as concise as possible. Ideally, this should be taken into account during the initial creation of the source content. Remember that one of the main reasons why econtent is internationalised is to ensure painless and cost-effective localisation. Consider, for example, that you have 10,000 words of text in your original

30 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 25 econtent files, which you want to translate. The cost of translation is 30 cent per word. This will add up to a total of $3000. If you could reduce the number of words to 8,000, your cost will be $2400. The savings you make will obviously be multiplied, depending on the number of languages that wish to localise into. Editing unnecessary words and reducing word count has a number of benefits: It will improve the clarity of the material. It will make the text easier to translate. It will reduce costs, even if you choose not to translate the material. Remember that you will have to pay somebody to prepare the source material, so the less text you require, the lower the cost will be. At the same time however, there is little value in simply eliminating words for the sake of it. It is extremely important to get your message across accurately to visitors. You should strive to create econtent that is clear and comprehensible, but as concise as possible. 3.3 Terminology When developing econtent for a global market, it is important that you start thinking about terminology from the very start of the project. If the author of your original econtent has been trained to write with internationalisation and localisation in mind, they will be well aware of the importance of terminology. If they have not, they may overlook some essential issues. There are a number of basic guidelines that should be followed when creating the original econtent, which are outlined below Create a Glossary of Terms If you decide to localise your econtent into another language, one of the first things that a potential localisation vendor will ask you for is a glossary of terms. The vendor will then find an appropriate translation for each of the terms to be used in the localised version of your web site. Therefore, it makes sense to create a glossary, or a list of the most important terminology used in your econtent files, when you are writing your original material Be Consistent Creating a glossary can improve the overall consistency of your econtent files. Whether you have a glossary or not, however, you should

31 26 Writing for International Audiences always use consistent terms to describe concepts or actions. For example, if you write Click on the Link the first time a hyperlink appears on your web site, do not use different terminology (such as Use the Hyperlink ) when encouraging the user to undertake a similar action at a different place in the site. If there is more than one way of phrasing something, decide from the beginning which you are going to adopt and use it throughout your web site. You may be concerned that this will have a negative affect on your writing style, but remember that your main objective is to get a clear message across to as many visitors as possible. For this reason, it is better to focus on communicating your message rather than to try to impress visitors with your linguistic capabilities. By maintaining consistency, it will be easier for non-native speakers to read and understand your econtent. It will also facilitate any future localisation work Avoid the use of Jargon Avoid the use of jargon, or specialised words and phrases, that may only be understood by specialists. Technical documents are particularly susceptible to the use of buzzwords, jargon and catch phrases that will not be understood internationally and that will not translate well into other languages Avoid the use of Acronyms and Abbreviations Acronyms and abbreviations used in a specific country will not generally be understood by an international audience. Different acronyms and abbreviations are used in each language to represent the same organisation or concept. This can be illustrated by the following example. The English acronym NATO stands for the North Atlantic Trade Agreement and is used widely in English-speaking countries. However, NATO becomes OTAN (Organisation du Traité de l Atlantique nord) when translated into French. It would be extremely difficult for non-native speakers to memorise all of the acronyms used in a particular language. Consequently, if you must use acronyms, make sure to expand them fully the first time they occur in your econtent files, so that users will be able to see what the acronym actually stands for. Similar problems arise with the use of abbreviations. You should note that some languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew, do not even use abbreviations. In countries where they are used, they differ significantly. For example, the English abbreviation for approximately is approx., while the German equivalent is ca. (circa).

32 econtent Localisation - An Introduction Avoid Religious and Political References Religious and political beliefs and practises vary greatly around the world. You will not be able to see whether the people visiting your site are Christians, Jews, Muslims or Atheists. Similarly, you will know nothing about their political views. Since you do not wish to offend any potential visitors, you should avoid any reference to religion or politics. This does not only apply to textual references, but also to any potentially offensive symbols or images that may be included on your web site. 3.4 Grammar Writing for internationalisation also means creating documents that adhere to more technical guidelines. Remember that non-native speakers will generally have learned the grammar of your language from textbooks. They will therefore be familiar with the specific rules of your language. If you break the rules, or if you use complex grammatical structures, you risk confusing your visitors. As mentioned earlier, try to keep your language relatively simple to ensure effective communication. Grammatical rules differ from language to language, but some common problem areas are summarised in this section. Since it is easy for native speakers to overlook certain grammar points, it is a good idea to get a non-native speaker to proof-read your completed work and to inform you of any potential problem areas Use Simple Sentence Structures Different languages use diverse sentence structures. You should aim to keep the structure of your sentences as simple and straightforward as possible. In English, for instance, the most basic construction is: Subject-Verb-Object. The object can be followed by any additional information. If you choose complex structures, or insert too many subordinate clauses into your sentences, you may confuse your visitors. Another point to bear in mind is that long sentences can be difficult to understand. You should try to use concise sentences in your econtent, which only use words that are actually needed to convey the appropriate message. Sentences should be an average of sixteen words Use the Active Voice Even when you are writing for native speakers, the passive voice is not generally a good idea. Passive sentences are much more ambiguous than their active equivalents. In addition, there are many languages that do not have a passive construction at all.

33 28 Writing for International Audiences For example, the phrase "French is spoken here" is a legitimate passive construction in English. In French however, it is rendered as "On parle français ici", which literally means "One speaks French here" Avoid Phrasal and Modal Verbs Phrasal verbs are made up of two or more words. Some examples in English are "to call up", "to pull in", "to pick at" and "to drop out." These verbs can be difficult for an international audience to understand, especially as different English-speaking countries assign contradictory meanings to them. If possible, you should avoid using phrasal verbs and instead choose a one-word verb that means the same thing. Modal verbs express the mood of the main verb. They include words such as "could", "can", "would", "might" and "may." These verbs should only be used when there is no other way to express a distinction. It is important to avoid combining both phrasal and modal verbs, unless it is absolutely necessary Use Positive Language Negative constructions can be ambiguous and difficult to translate. Double negatives are especially troublesome. An example of a double negative is not uncommon. Try to phrase things positively as often as possible and avoid using double negatives altogether. It is sometimes difficult to spot negatives. An example is Don t you agree that.... This sentence actually begins negatively, with the contracted form of do not Avoid a Telegraphic Style of Writing The term telegraphic originates from the notion of the telegram, where the number of words is restricted and complete sentences are not used. This style should be avoided when writing for an international audience as it obscures the meaning of the text and can be difficult to translate. An example of a telegraphic style would be an error message that read: Insufficient privileges. This message would be clearer if it were rephrased as follows: The requested page cannot be opened. Privilege is insufficient Avoid the use of Long Noun Strings Certain languages are renowned for stringing a series of nouns together. This can lead to great confusion in terms of the relationships between the nouns, even for native speakers. It is difficult to see what noun is modifying what. The use of prepositions such as in, by, at, of and on can help to solve this problem. For example, the English noun string cable adapter number table could be constructed in an easier way: The table of cable adapter numbers.

34 econtent Localisation - An Introduction Style The writing style that you use in your econtent files will influence how effectively you communicate with your visitors. Obviously, the style you adopt will depend on the main function and the target audience of your web site. In general, however, any business-oriented sites should not use an over-friendly writing style or address visitors in a childish manner. Even people who speak the same language as you do, may find this style condescending. An example of this writing style is as follows: Now that you have read about the unique features of our product, you can download this demo version to evaluate at home. Be sure to follow the sequence of tasks carefully. This over-friendly style also tends to increase the overall word count and to reduce the clarity of your econtent. Therefore, a more formal style of writing is usually preferred. Regardless of the writing style you use, however, remember to implement the same style consistently throughout your econtent files. There is another point on style that is of relevance to those who wish to use their web site as a marketing tool. In the US and some other countries, it is common for a company to publish statements that compare their product or service with those of a competitor. The idea is to show their company in a favourable light. Elsewhere, this practise is highly unusual and is even illegal in certain parts of the world. For this reason, your web site should avoid using direct comparative statements. he product. 3.6 Country-Specific Conventions No matter what sector of the global market you wish to target, your audience should be able to identify with, and understand, your econtent. Therefore, you should omit any country-specific references from your writing. Your web site should be as neutral as possible, i.e. visitors should not be able to immediately associate it with a specific country. In order to achieve this effect, the following points should be taken into account when writing your econtent files: Avoid Indirect References to Specific Countries If your web site includes text that refers to a particular country, it is important to make it clear to international visitors exactly what place you are talking about.

35 30 Writing for International Audiences Problems can arise if you write something like Our product is the best-selling washing machine in the domestic market for example. Visitors from around the world would attribute different meanings to the word domestic. A British person would assume that it referred to the UK market, while an American would take it for granted that the writer was talking about the US. Likewise, be careful when using the word foreign. Remember that while certain places might be foreign from your perspective, they may be home to your visitors. You should substitute words such as domestic and foreign with the name of the specific country you are referring to. For instance, the example above could be rewritten as: Our product is the best-selling washing machine in Japan Use International Examples Using examples or anecdotes to communicate a message to others is a good idea. However, you must ensure that any examples you choose to include on your web site are suitable for an international audience. Otherwise, you might actually confuse your visitors. When writing fictious names or addresses for instance, try to use generic examples that would be recognised in most parts of the world. Using examples that include references to national games, such as baseball in the US, will not be understood by an international audience and should be avoided. If you use country-specific examples, and you wish to translate your econtent in the future, translators may spend a considerable amount of time trying to come up with equivalent examples Avoid the use of Humour Humour is deeply rooted in a specific country or culture and it does not communicate well across cultures, even when it is translated. What is funny in Japan may not be funny in Spain and vice versa. The reason for this is that humour depends on the shared experiences of its audience. Therefore, when writing for an international audience, it is probably best to avoid using humour altogether Avoid the use of Clichés and Slang Every country in the world is guilty of developing its own set of clichés and colloquial language. Not only are these elements unique to each individual country, they also change constantly as a language evolves. For this reason, they should be omitted from international web sites. Think about the phrase "To make no bones about it". To Americans, this cliché means to do something in a straightforward and unapologetic

36 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 31 manner. However, it would mean nothing to an international audience. The verb get is frequently used in American slang, with multiple meanings. It can mean anything from "receive" ("I got your gift") to "must" ("Gotta go!") to "understand" ("Get my drift?"). Many non-native English speakers are puzzled when they encounter such phrases. They are familiar with the word get, but not with all of its uses. If you need to communicate effectively with people whose first language is not the same as yours, you should use the most internationally recognised words and phrases available Additional Elements You should also be particularly careful when dealing with the following: Seasonal references. The reason for this is that seasons vary from country to country. You should use month names instead. Geographical nicknames. An example would be the Big Apple, which is used to refer to New York. These nicknames may not be used or recognised internationally. Celebrities. People who are famous in one country may be unheard of on the other side of the globe. Alternatively, people who are idolised in one part of the world, may inspire negative feelings in other parts, such as the Dalai Lama, from Tibet. Holidays or celebrations. Not everybody around the world takes a holiday during August, nor do they all celebrate events such as Christmas or Hanukkah. 3.7 Summary and Review Exercise In this section we dealt with some of the issues that need to be considered when writing for an international audience, under the headings of: Terminology, Grammar, Style and Country-specific Conventions. Remember that by writing your original econtent files in a clear and concise manner, you will communicate better with non-native speakers. By keeping internationalisation in mind from the outset, you will also facilitate the future work of translators if you choose to localise your site. Documentation that is wordy or ambiguous creates more work for the translators and will therefore increase your costs. Even having followed the guidelines outlined in this section, you should ideally ask somebody from another country to read through your completed work, in order to check for clarity, double meanings, cultural idiosyncrasies or taboos.

37 32 Writing for International Audiences Exercise: Examine the piece of text provided. Was it written with an international audience in mind? Note any problems that you find. Can you come up with some solutions to these problems?

38 Formatting Conventions <html> <head> <meta http-equiv = Content-Type content = text/html; charset = windows-1252 > </head> Almost every country in the world uses specific conventions to deal with items such as time, date, currency and measurement.

39 34 Formatting Conventions 4.1 Introduction In addition to linguistic and cultural issues, various formatting conventions must be considered when designing econtent for international markets. Almost every country in the world has specific conventions for dealing with items such as times, dates and measurements. Your web site should display these items in the most unambiguous manner possible to ensure that they will be interpreted correctly by international users. Furthermore, your internationalised site should be capable of dealing with the particular formatting requirements of each individual market. This will facilitate the process of localisation. It is important to remember that these conventions are independent of language. For example, while English is the spoken language in both the US and the UK, both countries use significantly different formatting rules. You want users to feel just as comfortable on your site as they would on a site created in their own country. Choosing the most appropriate formatting conventions, or displaying various alternatives, can help you to achieve this aim. Also, if users are expected to submit formatted data from your site (e.g. their date of birth), it is best to specify the format in which you wish them to enter this data. In this section we will examine the following items and the different formatting conventions used to represent them in particular locales: Numbers Times Dates Currencies Units of Measurement Address Formats Telephone Numbers 4.2 Overview If you intend to expand your business into a number of different markets, you need to be aware of the local means of counting, representing and measuring data. You need to ensure that the pricing of your product or service is appropriate for the target market, that the times and dates you set, reflect the local norms and so forth. If these items are not dealt with correctly on your web site, users may decide to leave and do business instead with a local provider. An easy way to find out what local conventions are used in a specific target market is to refer to your computer s Regional Options. This can be accessed by clicking on the Start button and then choosing: Settings, Control Panel and Regional Options.

40 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 35 Figure 9 below shows the Microsoft Windows 2000 Regional Options dialog box. By selecting any locale from the drop-down list, under the General tab, and then clicking on the various other tabs, you will see the correct settings for numbers, currency, time and date for the chosen locale. Figure 9: Microsoft Windows 2000 Regional Options dialog box 4.3 Numbers While the idea of numbers and counting is universal, the format in which numbers are displayed varies greatly around the world and, as a result, can lead to great confusion. The most basic difference involves the actual numerals that are used. Almost all countries use Arabic numerals (1,2,3...), but variations do exist, such as Chinese and Roman numerals. The separators used within numbers to represent units of thousands and decimals are different around the world. In the UK and the US, a comma (,) is used as the thousands separator and the period (.) is used as the decimal separator. This is not always the case however.

41 36 Formatting Conventions Below are a few examples of how numbers are punctuated, or represented, in different countries. Table 2 Numeric Separators Format Country 1, US 1.234,56 Germany 1 234,56 France Suppose a user wants to order a certain quantity of products from your web site. How should they enter the number of products they want? One way to avoid any potential problems is to state that separators are not to be included in numeric values. Another suggestion is to prompt the user to select their locale before entering any data and then allowing them to enter numbers, using the separators that they are most familiar with. There are also a number of ways to indicate positive and negative values. Plus (+) and minus (-) signs may be placed either before or after the number or alternatively negative numbers may be placed inside parenthesis. Problems with numbers can even exist between countries that speak the same language. An example of this is the expression, a billion. In the UK, a billion is a million million, i.e 1,000,000,000,000, while in the US it is only a thousand million, i.e. 1,000,000,000. It is easy to see how misunderstandings could arise from this significant difference. There are also cultural differences in terms of which numbers are lucky and which are unlucky. For example, the number 13 is considered unlucky in most of the Western world, but the equivalent in China and other parts of Asia is the number 4. These differences can present problems if any part of your web site presents users with, or allows users to input, numeric data. 4.4 Times Similarly, time formats vary across the globe. Some countries choose to include seconds when displaying the time, while others will usually omit them. Although the various elements of time - hours, minutes and seconds - always appear in this order, the notation used to separate them is subject to change. For example, 08:27, 08h27 and all represent the same time.

42 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 37 Much of Europe uses the 24-hour clock, while the US and Canada, for example, use the 12-hour equivalent. To distinguish between day and night, they add the acronyms a.m. or p.m. to the end of the time, which stand for ante meridian and post meridian respectively. In Japan, a similar format is used although in this case, the qualifiers are placed before the time. Gozen and Gogo replace a.m. and p.m. Time zones are another important consideration. Web sites often display the current time and date, but designers often forget that the time will be different depending on the location of the person accessing your site. Time zone abbreviations are not standardised. For instance, Central European Time is known as HEC by the French-speaking population and MEZ by the German speakers. For this reason, it is a good idea to either include the full name of the time zone or to indicate the variation from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), e.g. 23:17 Greenwich Mean Time -5 hours. 4.5 Dates When displaying the date numerically, it is necessary to allow for three distinct sequences. To illustrate this, we will take the following example: 12/10/03. In the US, this notation is used to represent December 10, In the UK, the same configuration refers to October 12, 2003, while in Japan it may be October 3, This could potentially have disastrous consequences. The easiest way around this problem is to avoid the abbreviation of dates. State the day, the month and the year clearly. A good example of this can be seen in Figure 11 on the following page, which is taken from the Ryanair.com web site. Alternatively, if you intend to allow the user to enter a date in a simple text box, it is better to specify the format you require from them as shown in Figure 10. Figure 10: Date Format

43 38 Formatting Conventions Figure 11: Ryanair Booking Form If you are using abbreviations, you should be aware that the following characters can be used to separate the three elements of the date: A hyphen (-) A comma (,) A period (.) A space ( ) A back slash (/) No separator To add to the confusion, not all countries use the same calendar. The one you are probably most familiar with is the Gregorian calendar, which is used in the Western world. In contrast, many people in Japan still use an Imperial calendar, which records time according the emperor s reign. For example, the year 2002 (Gregorian) was Heisei 14 in the Imperial calendar. Heisei is the name of the current emperor, who has been in power since In addition, variations of the Lunar calendar are used in Arabic countries and China. Other items to bear in mind, in relation to international times and dates, are: The dates of public and religious holidays The length of the working day The duration of the working week

44 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 39 While it may not be possible, or desirable, for you to cater for all of the variations, it is essential that you are aware of their existence. This will help to make you more sensitive to the needs of your potential customers. 4.6 Currencies If you intend to market your product or service internationally, you will need to be concerned with the issue of currency. You may choose to limit all transactions to one given currency. This is acceptable, provided that it is stated clearly on your web site. Alternatively, you may wish to allow the user to select a currency from a list. In this case, you will also have to incorporate a currency conversion program into your web site and research local taxation issues. This is a complex subject which will not be dealt with during this course. However, as with the other items that we have dealt with thus far, the formatting of currencies can pose problems. In Europe, the issue of currency has become notably more straightforward since the advent of the Euro ( ). It has eliminated eleven of the European currencies and as a result has facilitated trade in the European Union. However differences still remain within the Eurozone, with the currency symbol appearing both before and after the monetary amount and various separators being used to separate Euro from cent. Regardless of whether you wish to attract customers from inside or outside of Europe, the following rules apply: The currency symbol can be up to four characters long. The currency symbol can appear either before or after the numerals or can be used as a decimal separator. A comma, period, colon or currency symbol can be used as a decimal separator. The choice of thousand separator will be the same as for ordinary numbers (See 4.3). 4.7 Units of Measurement A good example of getting it wrong in terms of units of measurements is given in the web site on the following page. This is a US site (weather.com) that gives users access to an up-to-date weather forecast for all parts of the world. However, the temperatures are only given in degrees Fahrenheit, which is the US standard, although much of the world uses Celsius. Likewise the speed of the winds are quoted in miles per hour, while kilometres are used for the same purpose in many countries.

45 40 Formatting Conventions Figure 12: Weather report for Dublin, Ireland On a more positive note, however, it should be noted that weather.com does provide local sites. However, this site would probably work better, if the user was given an option to choose their locale on the opening page of weather.com. Then, based on the locale the user selected, a more appropriate determination could be made as to the correct units of measurement. An abundance of similar problems can occur in this area. Pay particular attention to: Inches versus centimetres Standard A4 size paper x 11 versus 8 x 13 Sizes of clothing and footwear 4.8 Address Formats Virtually every company that produces econtent will need to display addresses (Head Quarters, Regional offices etc.) and accept addresses from users. However, like so many other items, every country has a particular convention for dealing with them. The order in which the address appears will differ from place to place. In the UK, the format that is typically used is as follows:

46 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 41 Name of Addressee (First Name, Second Name) Name of Company Street Number, Street Name Town City State, Postal Code Country If your web site includes a form that requires users to enter an address, ensure that you make fields optional, as certain elements may not be required internationally. A classic example of this is the inclusion of a compulsory zip or postal code field, even though a large number of countries do not use such codes. 4.9 Telephone Numbers The final item that we will look at is telephone numbers. First of all, any telephone numbers that you display on your web site should include an international dialling code, as well as any regional or local codes. For example, the international format of the Localisation Research Centre s telephone number is as follows: Obviously, this also applies to fax numbers. If you require users to submit their telephone numbers, request them to include similar dialling codes and ensure to leave enough space for them to enter the whole number Summary and Review Exercise Having reached the end of this section, it should be clear that an enormous number of items, such as numbers, dates and telephone numbers, use formatting conventions that differ significantly from country to country. It is not possible to highlight all of the differences here, nor is it feasible for you to incorporate all of the alternative formatting conventions into your web pages. At the same time, it is crucial to be conscious of the differences that exist and to find ways to accommodate at least a subset of the most widely-used conventions.

47 42 Formatting Conventions Exercise: Examine the sample web page. Where have formatting conventions been used? Are these conventions suitable for an international audience? If not, can you think of more appropriate alternatives?

48 Cultural Issues you may have no relevance in which makes perfect sense to Remember that a metaphor another culture.

49 44 Cultural Issues 5.1 Introduction Culture is a system of shared meanings, which form a framework for behaviour in everyday life. People from different cultures often have various opposing beliefs, attitudes and values. This means that misunderstandings that occur in interactions between people of the same culture, are magnified by the wider differences in intercultural interaction. Very often internationalisation and localisation concentrate mainly on the technical and linguistic processes involved, while cultural aspects are overlooked. However, if you wish to attract international visitors to your web site, you must ensure that all of your content is as culturally-neutral as possible. Remember that when users first access your site, they will determine at a glance how appropriate the site is for their individual needs. This crucial first impression will be formed from the most visible elements of your site, such as the colours and images. If visitors find something offensive, they will quickly leave your site, with no intention of returning. For this reason, it is essential that you are aware of the various ways in which cultures around the world differ and that you acquaint yourself with some important international cultural taboos. This in itself is extremely challenging and requires a great deal of research. Ideally, it is preferable to consult international cultural experts to determine if your site is culturally appropriate for an international audience. However, this section of the course will provide you with a brief overview of some of the more obvious pitfalls. It will focus on the following areas: Colours Graphics Symbols Gestures Representations of People Deeper Cultural Issues 5.2 Colours The significance and meaning attached to colours differs from one country to the next. For example, in the US orange symbolises road hazards and fast-food restaurants, while in Asia it is a positive and spiritually enlightened colour. Similarly, white represents purity and hope in the US, but in Japan it is the colour of death and mourning. Many colours have multiple connotations, even within the same locale. For instance, in China red represents happiness, but to print a person s name in red is considered to be an insult unless the person is dead.

50 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 45 Table 3 illustrates some of the meanings that are associated with different colours in specific locales. Since colour is one of the first elements of your web site that people will perceive, it is important that you put some thought into creating a suitable colour scheme. Whatever scheme you decide on should be used consistently throughout your site. Blue is thought to be the most internationally acceptable colour. Table 3 Colour Associations Colour US Spain France Japan China Red Danger Power, Passion, Fire, Danger Aristocracy Anger, Danger Green Safety Hope Criminality Future, Youth, Energy Happiness Ming Dynasty, Heaven Yellow Cowardice Bad luck Transience Grace, Nobility Birth, Wealth, Power, Royalty White Purity, Hope Purity Neutrality Death Death, Purity Something else to bear in mind is that the distinctions between colours can vary greatly from country to country. For example, the perception of the colours blue and green varies quite a bit between the US and Japan. Whether you are hoping to attract visitors from other countries or not, remember that colour alone cannot convey meaning. For instance, colour-blind people, regardless of their origin, may not be able to perceive the distinction between colours. 5.3 Graphics Graphics are expensive to create and almost as expensive to modify. Therefore, it is important when you create your econtent that you only include graphics, which will be understood internationally. Some challenges that arise with graphics are highlighted below.

51 46 Cultural Issues Graphics with Embedded Text Placing text in graphics can cause you a lot of problems if you want to localise your econtent files. You should try where possible to keep the image and text separate. You can add some text either directly above or below the image. If you do choose to embed text into your graphics, there are some steps you can take to minimise future problems. For example, it is possible to use a software package, such as Adobe PhotoShop, in order to create graphics that use separate layers. This means that you can isolate text from the image itself by storing it in a different layer. In this way, if you decide to localise your web site, your vendor will only need to translate the text contained in one, single layer. The remaining layers of the graphic will be untouched. When you create the original version of your graphics, ensure that you leave plenty of space for the textual part of the graphics to expand if it is translated. It is generally a good idea to leave enough space for the text to double in size, both vertically and horizontally. The issue of text expansion will be dealt with in more detail in section 6 of this course Graphical Metaphors A graphical metaphor assumes knowledge of a well-known physical object and compares, or identifies, it with something more abstract or unfamiliar. You should avoid using graphical metaphors in your econtent files. The reason for this is that metaphors, which make perfect sense in your locale, may have no relevance in another country. A classic example of this can be seen in Figure 13 below. Figure 13: A Traditional American Mailbox This image illustrates a traditional mailbox that is commonly used in rural America. The mailbox stands outside of each house, with a little red flag on the side. This flag has two purposes. First of all, the postman raises the flag to tell people that he has delivered their incoming mail. Secondly, people raise the flag themselves to signal to the postman that they have put an outgoing letter in the mailbox, which they wish him to deliver. This image is often adapted for programs. When the red flag is up, it signifies only one thing - that the user has a new message. However, this image may not make any sense to the vast majority of international users, who are not familiar with such mailboxes. Since mailboxes around the world come in various shapes and sizes, it would not be logical to substitute this image with that of another mailbox.

52 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 47 If a metaphor is to work, it needs to be clearly understood internationally. For example, virtually all cultures in the world are familiar with the idea of paper and envelope. Therefore, using this metaphor to represent an program would be more appropriate. (See Figure 14 below). Figure 14: An Alternative Graphic Flow of Information The way that both textual and graphical information is comprehensively and meaningfully aligned on a web page varies significantly among cultures. In the US, for example, a series of columns and tables will be aligned from left to right and top to bottom. This would not make sense in Arabic countries however, where the logical arrangement of information is from right to left. In addition, Chinese users will generally read vertically, rather than horizontally. To allow for this, it is a good idea to add arrows to a series of graphics to show users in which order they should view them Folder Setup All graphics should be placed in a separate folder, away from HTML and other files. This will make it easier for a localisation vendor to analyse your web site if you decide to localise it in the future. In addition, if any of your graphics contain text, provide a list of the fonts that were used in the original image. If you do not supply your vendor with this information, they will spend a considerable amount of time trying to find matching fonts. This is especially troublesome if the fonts you use are not very common. Finally, if your graphics contain embedded text and were created using layers, make sure to keep a copy of each individual layer, as your vendor will need to access them during the localisation process. 5.4 Symbols As part of the internationalisation process, you must ensure that there are no culturally-dependent symbols used in your web site that could be misinterpreted by a global audience. The same symbol or icon can have vastly different associations in different countries.

53 48 Cultural Issues Animals Animals seldom work as symbols on an international level. Each animal is associated with different qualities around the world. For instance, in the US, dogs are pets or hunting companions and symbolise loyalty. To many Asians, however, dogs are food. Similarly, in the Western world, owls are symbolic of wisdom, but in Southeast Asia, they are seen as particularly brutal and stupid birds. A number of animals also have religious significance. For example, cows are sacred to the Hindus, while pigs are looked on as unclean and unholy by Muslims and Jews. Traditionally, animals have been used as stereotypes of certain nationalities. Examples are frogs for the French and kangaroos for the Australians Body Parts It is also dangerous to use parts of the human body as symbols in international communication. There is no universal standard of modesty and different cultures are offended by the display of certain body parts. For instance, in Arabic countries, the soles of the feet are considered to be the lowliest and dirtiest part of the body. Therefore, it is rude to use an image of the feet. Again in most parts of the Arabic world, the left hand is seen as being unclean. This is because it is only used for maintaining personal hygiene. The right hand is used for all other purposes. In India, the head is considered sacred. Women should keep their heads covered at all times and people should avoid touching or patting one another on the head. Since each part of the body signals various different meanings, it may be wise to exclude them from your web site Flags An important issue, which cannot be overlooked when designing a multilingual web site, is the inclusion of symbols to indicate to users that the site may be viewed in multiple languages. Flags are commonly employed for this purpose, but the use of flags is frowned upon in the localisation industry. The reason for this is that a flag is not equivalent to a locale and because it is often difficult to decide what flag to use for a particular language. For example, what flag should be used to represent the English language version of your web site? A British flag, an American flag, an Australian flag or even an Irish flag? An alternative symbol should therefore be used for this purpose.

54 econtent Localisation - An Introduction Religious or Political Symbols As mentioned in section 3 of this course, it is advisable to omit any religious or political references from your econtent files to avoid offending international visitors, who may not share your views in these respects. References can be in the form of text or symbols and include the following: Stars: A yellow six-pointed star, known as the Star of David, is symbolic for the Jewish religion. It can cause offense to those with different religious views. Crosses: The symbol of the cross has religious connotations for all Christians. It may cause offense in Arabic countries however. This can be seen clearly by the fact that the Red Cross humanitarian organisation is referred to as the Red Crescent in these countries. Swastika: This symbol is viewed differently in various parts of the world. It is an ancient symbol of good luck, prosperity and long life, in places such as India and China. However, it was adopted as a political symbol of the National Socialist party during the 1930s and 40s and, as a result, has negative connotations in much of Europe. 5.5 Gestures Regardless of our origins, gestures play an intrinsic part in our social lives. We all use gestures on a daily basis to encourage, instruct, entertain or even insult other people. However, each gesture has a variety of different meanings, which you should be conscious of if you plan to incorporate them into your econtent files. A couple of examples are highlighted below Greetings A handshake is the most common form of gesture used to greet people in the Western world. This is by no means universal however. In India, people greet each other using namaste, which involves placing the hands in a praying position, about chest high, and bowing slightly. In parts of the Middle East, people still use salaam. In this gesture, the right hand sweeps upward, first touching the heart, then the forehead and finally continues up and outward. It may be accompanied by a slight nod of the head. In Japan, the customary way to greet people is with a bow. Maori tribesmen in New Zealand choose to rub noses to greet one another.

55 50 Cultural Issues Thumbs Up The thumbs up gesture is recognised in most parts of the world to mean Everything is OK or Well done. It is often used in web sites to convey this meaning. However, in certain countries, it has very different connotations. In the US and parts of Europe, this gesture is used by hitchhikers to attract the attention of passing motorists, while in Australia, Nigeria and Sicily, it is a very insulting and vulgar gesture. Apart from the thumb, there is virtually no arrangement of the human hand and fingers that is not viewed negatively in some part of the world. For this reason, it is a good idea to restrict the use of hand gestures on your web site. 5.6 Representations of People Again this point reiterates the fact that you do not know anything about the people who visit your web site. They will inevitably have different ideas about the type of people that should be depicted on your web site. These ideas are based on their experiences in the real world. If you wish to include images of people in your web site, you need to be aware of certain issues Race You do not wish to offend the natives of any race, so if, for example, you are showing a photograph of people at work on your web site, it may be a good idea to include people from different races. In this way, it will be easier for people of all ethnic origins to identify with your site and feel that the content is relevant for them. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that racism still exists in many parts of the world. In certain countries, people expect to see others with a certain skin and hair colour and are not open to any variation from what they see as the norm. For this reason, you may discourage certain people from visiting your site by including multi-racial photographs on your site Gender In most parts of Europe and the US, there is a strong sense of gender equality. Therefore, on your web site, women and men should be depicted in the same roles, regardless of whether these roles are related to the home or the workplace.

56 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 51 However, in many Arabic, African and Asian countries, society is still male-dominated. Visitors from these countries will take offence at an image of a woman in an important social or business role, as they are unfamiliar with this type of scenario Dress Code How people, who are photographed or illustrated on your web site, are dressed can also cause problems. If your web site is business-related, the typical dress code for men is a dark suit and tie. This Western form of dress has been adopted by most parts of the world. However, after work, traditional forms of dress are still worn in many countries. Men in Saudi Arabia, for example, cover their heads with a Tagiyah or Ghutra and wear a dress-like garment, known as a Thob or a Dishdasha. In many ways this issue again relates back to gender and race. In certain Arabic countries, for example, women are not permitted to wear trousers and must keep certain parts of their bodies covered in loose, flowing garments at all times. Therefore, an illustration of a woman wearing a skirt that exposes her legs would not be acceptable in these locales. However, if you try to accommodate for this and instead show a woman covered up from head to toe, it would be equally inappropriate for a Western audience. This whole area is so troublesome that many businesses opt to illustrate people using simple generic s, rather than using realistic portraits. These cartoon-type s do not favour any specific race, gender or style of dress. 5.7 Deeper Cultural Issues There are many layers of culture, some of which are more easily identifiable than others. Various theorists have developed cultural models in attempt to explain the distinction between these layers. One such model is known as the iceberg model. Just as only 10% of an iceberg is visible above water, only a small proportion of a person s culture is visible to others. The remaining 90% of an iceberg is below the surface of the water, i.e. it is invisible. Similarly, the majority of a person s culture is hidden from others and is extremely difficult to identify and study. Up until now, we have focused on the tip of the iceberg, i.e. the shallow or visible layers of culture, involving colours, images, symbols and gestures. We have not, however, dealt with deeper cultural issues. These issues include: how we instinctively interact with other people, how we learn and how we deal with time. In short, the attitudes, beliefs, values and assumptions shared by people with a common culture make up this deeper part of the iceberg model.

57 52 Cultural Issues In Japan, for example, people traditionally work in groups and do not like to be singled out, either for praise or for criticism. This was evident when a large software company tried to sell their product in Japan. The piece of software in question was developed for the US market. If an error occurred while using the software, the user was informed by a beeping sound. In a crowded Japanese office, this form of audio feedback caused embarrassment to an individual by broadcasting to his/her co-workers that a mistake had been made. Therefore, this feature had to be removed from the Japanese version. Most problems in intercultural communication arise because people are not conscious of the fundamental differences that exist between countries in terms of these deeper cultural issues. 5.8 Summary and Review Exercise Culture plays an intrinsic, if sometimes invisible, role in peoples lives, regardless of their country of origin. It is important to recognise, however, that culture differs significantly across national borders. The challenge, therefore, is to ensure that the content you provide on your web site is culturally appropriate for as wide an audience as possible and that it will not cause offence to any of your visitors. This section examined some of the cultural idiosyncrasies that exist around the world. Exercise: Examine the set of images and symbols provided. Can you guess what they are supposed to represent? Do you think that they would be recognised in the same way internationally? If not, can you think of any alternatives that would be more suitable?

58 File Formats Over the years, a wide range of markup languages have been developed in order to separate a document s structure from its content.

59 54 File Formats 6.1 Introduction The explosive growth of the Internet would not have been possible without the development of markup languages. One of the most original and comprehensive markup languages is SGML. However, the sheer size of SGML makes it an inappropriate choice for web-based applications. The vast majority of web pages are based on the HTML file format, which is an application of SGML. HTML is relatively easy to learn and as a result, has been thoroughly exploited by an almost endless array of web sites. While HTML does cater for internationalisation in some ways, it has some fundamental flaws that affect its ability to become a truly universal medium of information exchange. XML on the other hand is an extensible file format, that promises to make data sharing significantly easier. Another important format is XLIFF, an XML-based standard that has been developed especially for the localisation industry. In this section, we will explore some of the most prominent file formats. We will discuss the following topics: Markup Languages SGML HTML XML XLIFF Note that we will highlight the merits of both XML and XLIFF, since these file formats are ideally suited to internationalisation and localisation. However, since this is an introductory course and time is limited, it will not be possible for you to learn how to create XML-based econtent on this occasion. Instead, we will use HTML to design a web page and demonstrate some of the specific internationalisation features that are provided by this format. 6.2 Markup Languages Markup refers to anything that is contained in a document, other than the actual content, i.e. everything that is not part of the written text or graphics. Markup may be used for diverse purposes, such as to indicate how a file should look when it is displayed online, or to describe the document's logical structure. There are two distinct types of markup, namely procedural and descriptive.

60 econtent Localisation - An Introduction Procedural Markup Procedural markup defines what processing should be carried out at particular points of a document. It focuses mainly on the layout features of a document and deals with issues such as the font type, font size and colour of each heading style to be used in a document Descriptive Markup Descriptive markup, also referred to as generic markup, defines the purpose and content structure of a document. It explains what each element contained in document is, rather than concentrating on how it should be displayed. For instance, descriptive markup may state that each section of a particular document must begin with a heading and an introduction, followed by an overview of the topics that are to be covered in the section. 6.3 SGML SGML, or Standard Generalized Markup Language, is the international standard for defining descriptions of structure and content in electronic documents. It was adopted by the International Standardization Organization (ISO) in 1986 and can also be referred to as ISO SGML concentrates mainly on descriptive markup. It is extremely large and complex, having been used for heavy industrial and commercial purposes for over 16 years. It encompasses a huge body of expertise, relating to many fields of human activity, from patients medical records, to technical manuals for aircrafts and musical notation. For this reason, SGML can be seen as the parent markup language, from which the other variations discussed in this section are derived Document Type and Document Type Definition (DTD) SGML introduces the notion of a document type and, in turn, Document Type Definition (DTD). The type of a document is defined by it s constituent parts and their structure. The definition of a report, for example, might be that is consists of a title and possibly an author, followed by an abstract and a sequence of one or more paragraphs. Any document then that lacked a title would not formally be a report. Neither would any document which featured the abstract before the title. If documents are of a known type, a special purpose program, called a parser, can be used to process the documents and check that all the required elements for that document are present and ordered correctly. In addition, different documents of the same type can be processed in a

61 56 File Formats uniform and intelligent way. In this way, each individual document does not have to be dealt with separately. SGML has been used to describe thousands of different document types. It requires all structured documents to refer to a Document Type Definition (DTD) in order to be valid. A DTD specifies the rules to be followed when structuring a particular document. 6.4 HTML HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is just one of the many applications of SGML. In fact, it is one of the document types written in SGML. HTML has been the most commonly employed file format for creating and displaying web pages since the Internet was introduced in the early 1990s. HTML was developed at CERN (Centre European pour la Recherche Nucleaire or the European Laboratory for Particle Physics) and is a procedural markup language. HTML, like other markup languages is composed of tags, which are contained in angular brackets (<tag>). These tags are not case-sensitive, i.e. you can type them in upper or lower case. Tags usually occur in pairs, with an opening tag and a closing tag. For instance, placing the <B> tag before a piece of text, will apply the bold effect to the text when it appears in a browser. The bold effect is discontinued by using the closing </B> tag. Some tags, such as the line-break tag <BR> do not require a closing tag. Figure 15 on the following page shows a sample HTML file. Certain elements of HTML tags are useful from an internationalisation point of view. They include the following: <META HTTP-EQUIV..charset=.>. This meta tag was discussed already in section 2. The charset attribute tells the web browser what encoding standard should be used to render your web pages. Remember that the encoding standard for Unicode, UTF-8, should be used for international web sites. <META NAME="keywords".Lang= >. This meta tag is accessed by search engines to discover what keywords are used on your web pages. You should include the Lang attribute in this tag to specify the language that your web pages are written in. For example, the Lang attribute would be en for English, de for German and fr for French. Note that a full list of these language identifiers is available from the following URL: The <Font> tag. Remember that different fonts are used to display the different character sets used around the world. The attribute face is used to specify the font to be used, e.g. <FONT Face= Arial >

62 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 57 The <Dir> attribute is used within the Paragraph tag, to specify the direction of the characters to be displayed, e.g. <P Dir= rtl > is used for characters that are to be displayed from right-to-left. The Q tag is used to insert quotation marks. It can include a Lang attribute, since the type of quotation marks that are to be used are dependent on the language of the document, e.g. <Q Lang= de >. Figure 15: An Example of a Basic HTML File. Alone, HTML is not very powerful. It is possible to use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) with HTML, which will help to control the appearance and presentation of web pages. A Cascading Style Sheet defines the styles that you can apply to either your web page as a whole, or elements of your web pages. The following are simple examples of style rules defined in a typical CSS: H1 { font-size: x-large; color: green } H2 { font-size: large; color: blue } #footer { font-family: serif }

63 58 File Formats Another major limitation of HTML is that, each version of this file format uses only one type of DTD. This DTD defines all of the tags that can be included in HTML documents, using that particular version. This means that the number of different tags that can be used in any version of HTML is limited. Each of the tags is predefined and users do not have the option to create new tags. As the Internet grew, so too did the visions of thousands of web developers worldwide. To make up for the lack of extensibility in HTML, XML was developed. 6.5 XML XML, or extensible Markup Language, is an initiative proposed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that was first released in It is a simplified, cut-down version of SGML. This lightweight version retains enough of SGML s functionality to make it useful, but removes many features, which make SGML too complex for a Web environment. Both XML and HTML contain markup symbols to describe the contents of a web page. HTML, however, describes the content of a Web page in terms of how it should be displayed, while XML concentrates mainly on content and structure of the web page. XML is superior to HTML in many ways. Figure 16 illustrates a very basic example of XML. Note that it is equivalent to the HTML example shown in Figure 15, except that it does not specify how each of the elements will be displayed. This is apparent, when we see the difference in how each of the files is rendered by a browser.

64 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 59 Figure 16: An Example of a Basic XML File Merits of XML Although XML is not a replacement of HTML, it does offer web developers greater opportunities for creating more complex and interactive web-based applications. It is recommended for developing international web sites. Some of the merits of this file format are as follows: Open Source: XML is not developed by one specific company. Instead, a variety of the market leaders from the software industry are responsible. Extensible: XML is "extensible" since, unlike HTML, the number of markup tags is unlimited. XML allows users to define their own markup. They can create their own DTDs and use them to apply both procedural and descriptive markup to their electronic documents. In XML, the DTDs are called entities. Standalone: Unlike SGML, XML does not require a DTD to be considered valid. Standalone XML is acceptable, provided that it is well-formed. Note that in XML, all tags are case-sensitive and each opening tag requires a corresponding closing tag. Single Source: Another advantage of XML is single source publishing. In other words, documentation written in XML can be output in multiple formats, such as HTML for onscreen display or postscript for printing. This is possible because formatting information is strictly separated from content in XML. Multilingual: XML offers multilingual storage capabilities. It also contains features, such as the XML:Lang attribute, which can be used to access the specifics of a particular locale.

65 60 File Formats Support for Industry Standards: XML supports numerous encoding standards, including Unicode. It also supports industry standards, such as XLIFF and TMX, which will be discussed at a later stage. Isolation of Text in Graphics: XML can be used to isolate any text that may be embedded in graphics. This will be very useful if you plan to localise your econtent. Rendering: XML files do not deal with how content will be presented on a browser. However, XML uses stylesheets, such as CSS and XSL (extensible Stylesheet Language) to render or display econtent appropriately in a browser. More information on this promising file format is available on the W3C web site. 6.6 XLIFF Any of the file formats mentioned above can potentially be used for web site internationalisation and localisation. However, localisation presents a number of unique technical challenges, which none of the available formats were able to deal with effectively. As a result: Localisation clients developed various file formats to handle localisation These file formats were independent of each other and differed in many ways Tools developers, in turn, had to develop products that were capable of dealing with all of these formats Localisation service providers had to handle a variety of file formats, developed by their individual clients Problems arose because it was virtually impossible to cater for the countless file formats. Each tool used in the localisation industry supported a different range of formats, so interoperability between tools was difficult to achieve. In 2001, a group of localisation clients, service providers and tools developers formed a group, in an attempt to find a single, universal solution to these problems. Participants included Alchemy, Berlitz, IBM, Moravia-IT, Novell, Oracle, RWS Group and Sun MicroSystems. The result of their collective work was XLIFF, which stands for XML-based Localisation Interchange File Format. This is a specification for the lossless interchange of localisable data and its related information. It is tool-neutral and, as the name suggests, it is based on XML technology. Therefore, it offers all of the advantages of XML, which were highlighted in the previous section.

66 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 61 The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (Oasis) are now responsible for XLIFF. At present, XLIFF only allows for bilingual translation. However, work on the standard is ongoing. Figure 17 highlights the main components of an XLIFF file, which are as follows: <File> corresponds to a single extracted original document <Header> contains metadata about the file and the localisation process <Body> stores the structure and the localisable content from the file <Trans-unit> holds the text to be translated, the translations and other related information <Source> contains the source text <Target> stores the corresponding translated text Figure 17: The Main Components of an XLIFF File

67 62 File Formats 6.7 Summary and Review Exercise The technologies used to markup electronic text have evolved greatly since the Internet was first developed. A large number of file formats are currently available, which can either define how a document should be presented, or how the various components of a document will be structured. In this section, we revealed how certain file formats can be used to effectively create and display your internationalised econtent. Exercise: Open the Notepad application on your computer. Using the material provided, design a basic web page in HTML format. When you are finished, save the file on your desktop. In your code, try to incorporate some of the HTML tags, which were discussed in this section. In addition, you will find a comprehensive list of HTML tags at the following URL: htm.html. Examine how changing the value of certain attributes will affect the way your web page appears, when you open it in a web browser.

68 Typical I18n Problems Challenges that typically arise during the internationalisation process involve text expansion, technological limitations and legislative differences that exist between countries.

69 64 Typical I18n Problems 7.1 Introduction At this stage of the course, it should be clear to you that most of the problems, which arise during the internationalisation process, can in fact be dealt with when your original econtent is being created. If the person who develops your original source files is aware of the requirements of an international audience and designs your web site with these requirements in mind, there will be no need to redesign your site if you decide to target customers outside of your domestic market in the future. By adopting this approach, you will save yourself a considerable amount of time and money. However, whether you choose to deal with internationalisation from the outset, or as a separate process that will take place sometime later, you need to be aware of certain areas where difficulties can, and often do, arise. Some of these areas have been mentioned already, but this section will deal specifically with the following: Web Forms Text Expansion Technology Legal Issues Since this is the final section of the course, we will conclude by reviewing an internationalisation checklist. This was developed in order to help you to recap on the main issues that were covered during the course. It should also help you assess to what level your existing web site is internationalised. 7.2 Web Forms Forms are a common feature of almost all web sites. They are typically used to collect information from visitors or to allow customers to order products and services online. If web forms are not designed with an international audience in mind, they have the potential to cause serious problems during the localisation process. The primary concern in relation to web forms is to ensure that they are designed flexibly. The reason for this is that they need to be able to handle all types of data that may be entered by different users from around the world. More specifically, internationalised web forms must be capable of: Handling Multilingual Data: You cannot anticipate precisely where your visitors will come from or what language they will speak. They may need to use various accented characters or even different character sets to enter data.

70 econtent Localisation - An Introduction 65 Accepting Multi-Directional Data: Remember that not all languages read top-to-bottom, from left-to-right. You must allow for multi-directional input. Dealing with Text Expansion: Text expansion is dealt with in Section 7.3. It is especially relevant to forms, however, as the length of the required text fields will vary depending on the language your visitors choose to use. Accommodating Various Formatting Conventions: This area was examined in Section 4. Forms may include fields for items such as a person s date of birth or address for example. These items will have to be formatted correctly. A final point on web forms is that they should not include any mandatory fields that may not make sense on an international level. For example, the field for a zip or postal code in a person s address should not be mandatory, since not all locales use such codes. Figure 18 below illustrates an online booking form, taken from Ryanair.com. Note that it prompts users to enter an international dialling code when entering both telephone and fax numbers. Figure 18: Online Booking Form, taken from Ryanair.com