online multilingualism
chris waigl
barcamp london 5
2008-09-28

 Do you speak several languages?
 Is your native language not English?
 Are you a web developer (or designer, or
project or product manager)?
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 2

goal: opening the conversation
 facts: what languages are web users...
using? how?
 think: how could this change my
practice?
 imagine: where is the web going? where
should it be going?
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 3

languages and speakers
 347 languages > 1Mio speakers
 5% of languages → 95% of speakers
 75 language > 10Mio speaker
 1.2% of languages → 79% of speakers
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 4

the largest languages
 1 language 850-900Mio first-language
speakers: Mandarin
 3 languages 300-350Mio first-language
speakers: Spanish, Hindi, English
 But: English has 2.5-3 times as many
second-language fluent speakers than
first-language speakers
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 5

second-language speakers
 unilingualism is a privilege of rich,
developed countries
 the world's population is massively
multilingual
 Language proficiency changes fast
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 6

the (near-future) internet users:
 typically do not use English as a first
language
 use hundreds of languages overall
 typically read several languages
Online multilingualism, l10n, i18n is
→ a user experience problem
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 7

multilingualism in UX resources
 UX resources pretty much totally neglect
the language problem
 in the best case, l10n is planned from the
outset
 UX testing with non-primary language
speakers and mutlilingual testers – who
does this?
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 8

type of site/app (non-exhaustive)
 commercial: any language i read is
ok!
 search in all my languages. at once.
 communities:
i want to post in all my languages
i don't want to deal with (read) content i don't
understand
→ the monolingual/multilingual dilemma
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 9

erasing misconceptions
 country ⇏ language
 language ⇏ country
 country flags are a bad idea for
representing languages
 “Let's just start with English and think
about other languages later.”
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 10

example: Facebook
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 11

example: Google
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 12

example: PayPal
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 13

example: Paypal
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 14

other examples
 Amazon.com
 stackoverflow.com
 Wikipedia
 last.fm
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 15

elements for technical solutions
 HTML attributes: hreflang, lang, xml:lang
 what does the user want? OS language,
browser Accept-Language request header
 test test test: copy-and-paste context in
many scripts in your input forms
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 16

 do you know how the development stack
you work with handles Unicode?
 full text indexing in UTF-8?
 diacritics / Unicode normalization:
ȯ ≠ ȯ (U+006F U+0307 ≠ U+022F)
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 17

resources: Stephanie Booth
“While we wait for the Babelfish”
Google TechTalk
“While we wait for the Babelfish”
on SlideShare
(on multilingual/monolingual mixed
communities & multilingual blogging)
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 18

and now?
if the Open Web is about making the web
the next repository for global knowledge
and interactions, we must answer the
online mono-/multilingualism question.
what can you contribute?
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 19

online multilingualism
chris waigl
barcamp london 5
2008-09-28
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 1

 Do you speak several languages?
 Is your native language not English?
 Are you a web developer (or designer, or
project or product manager)?
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 2

goal: opening the conversation
 facts: what languages are web users...
using? how?
 think: how could this change my
practice?
 imagine: where is the web going? where
should it be going?
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 3

languages and speakers
 Gliederung durch Klicken hinzufügen
347 languages > 1Mio speakers
 5% of languages → 95% of speakers
 75 language > 10Mio speaker
 1.2% of languages → 79% of speakers
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 4

the largest languages
 1 language 850-900Mio first-language
speakers: Mandarin
 3 languages 300-350Mio first-language
speakers: Spanish, Hindi, English
 But: English has 2.5-3 times as many
second-language fluent speakers than
first-language speakers
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 5

second-language speakers
 unilingualism is a privilege of rich,
developed countries
 the world's population is massively
multilingual
 Language proficiency changes fast
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 6

the (near-future) internet users:
 typically do not use English as a first
language
 use hundreds of languages overall
 typically read several languages
Online multilingualism, l10n, i18n is
→ a user experience problem
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 7

multilingualism in UX resources
 UX resources pretty much totally neglect
the language problem
 in the best case, l10n is planned from the
outset
 UX testing with non-primary language
speakers and mutlilingual testers – who
does this?
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 8

type of site/app (non-exhaustive)
 commercial: any language i read is
ok!
 search in all my languages. at once.
 communities:
i want to post in all my languages
i don't want to deal with (read) content i don't
understand
→ the monolingual/multilingual dilemma
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 9

erasing misconceptions
 country ⇏ language
 language ⇏ country
 country flags are a bad idea for
representing languages
 “Let's just start with English and think
about other languages later.”
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 10

example: Facebook
 Gliederung durch Klicken hinzufügen
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 11

example: Google
 Gliederung durch Klicken hinzufügen
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 12

example: PayPal
 Gliederung durch Klicken hinzufügen
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 13

example: Paypal
 Gliederung durch Klicken hinzufügen
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 14

other examples
 Amazon.com
 stackoverflow.com
 Wikipedia
 last.fm
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 15

elements for technical solutions
 HTML attributes: hreflang, lang, xml:lang
 what does the user want? OS language,
browser Accept-Language request header
 test test test: copy-and-paste context in
many scripts in your input forms
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 16

Titel durch Klicken hinzufügen
 do you know how the development stack
you work with handles Unicode?
 full text indexing in UTF-8?
 diacritics / Unicode normalization:
ȯ ≠ ȯ (U+006F U+0307 ≠ U+022F)
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 17

resources: Stephanie Booth
“While we wait for the Babelfish”
Google TechTalk
“While we wait for the Babelfish”
on SlideShare
(on multilingual/monolingual mixed
communities & multilingual blogging)
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 18

and now?
if the Open Web is about making the web
the next repository for global knowledge
and interactions, we must answer the
online mono-/multilingualism question.
what can you contribute?
Chris Waigl | Barcamp London 5 | 2008-09-28 19