[Sigia-l] International sites

[Lyle_Kantrovich at cargill.com]

Sheila, 

Interesting question.  Are you talking about countries or languages or 
both?  You said "countries", but listed languages.

I assume you're talking about a US-English site that will provide 
brochures in multiple languages. (?)  If so, you might want to check 
how some of these sites organize their lists:
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=lang_en&safe=active&q=download+spanish+english+arabic+french+russian+portuguese+-dictionary+-learn+-dictionaries

Key 
points: If someone only speaks arabic, they won't find your brochure on 
an english-only site.  You may want to list language labels in english 
and native language (e.g. Spanish / Espanol) so people can identify 
things faster.

You might organize by usage (e.g. English first, Spanish second, French 
third) if you know the demand for particular translations and don't 
have a long list.  Alphabetical is a logical organization for long 
lists.  

http://www.adobe.com/products/pubcoll/languages.html

Adobe uses a alpha/usage hybrid organization here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/alternate.html

3M list example (in drop-downs):
http://www.3m.com/intl/ca/english/index.html

If you don't get much response here, you might try the CHI-web list.

Regards,

Lyle Kantrovich

Croc O' Lyle: personal commentary on usability, Information 
Architecture, and web design
http://crocolyle.blogspot.com