[Sigia-l] Question on multilingual sites

[mabaker at checkfree.com]

I'm going to agree with your colleague on this one without knowing 
specifically who your audience is and specifically how your site is set up 
because I am assuming that if you're providing content in Spanish, you're 
targeting Spanish-speaking people. With that said, if a Spanish-speaking 
person is on your site, and they don't speak English, they may never find 
the links to take them to the Spanish content, unless the links are in 
Spanish.

Here's a personal anecdote: I was planning a trip to France and searching 
for hotels online. My French is basic, at best, and I was so relieved to 
see a button or link in English that was directing me to the English 
version of something. I was less pleased to see French buttons or links 
directing me to the English version.  kept thinking, don't they realize 
that I'm looking for English because my French is so poor? They're 
providing English content, and they ought to direct me to it in English.

So, for your situation, if you're providing content in Spanish, it makes 
sense (to me) to provide the navigation to that content in Spanish.

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I think that if you're in the English interface you should see a link 
that says "In Spanish" rather than say "en Espanol."   Therefore, if 
you're in the Spanish side, you should see a link that says "En Ingles 
(or whatever the correct term is :-). 

My colleague says it's ok to have "en espanol"  as the title of the link 
even in the English page. He and I disagree obviously.

Any resources or opinions would be appreciated, even if they do not 
support my side of the discussion.

Thanks so much.
Jan

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Melinda Baker
Staff Product Designer
mabaker at checkfree.com
Phone: 678-375-3137

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