[Sigia-l] Question on multilingual sites-Thanks

[Jan Knight]

Thanks to all who wrote to me both off list and on regarding the 
discussion of translation links on web pages.

It appears there is "almost" common agreement that I need to graciously 
concede that my colleague is right! Oh well, we've made his day..

In most cases, the argument is that the user is looking for another 
language other than the page they are on and will be wanting to locate 
that material by seeing something written in his/her own language. It 
may, potentially, be the only part of the page they can understand.  
This seems to me to be the strongest argument so I'll go with that 
premise even though there are obviously exceptions.

Thanks again to all who took time to respond.
Jan

-- 
Jan Knight, MA
Senior Research Specialist
Learning Technologies Center
Computer Center # 337
1077 N. Highland Ave.
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
520-626-7761
mailto: jknight at email.arizona.edu



Jan Knight wrote:

> Hi:
> I'm having a bit of a "discussion" with someone on how to identify 
> pages of web sites that are in different languages.
>
> Are there standards for the following or does anyone have comments - 
> anecdotal even?
>
> If a site has primarily English content but also has some content in 
> Spanish dotted around, my take is that everything on the English 
> interface should ALL be in English. Now, I'm not talking about a site 
> where there is an entire translated equivalent site, just one where 
> some pages or articles are also provided in Spainish.
>
> 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
>