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Language code: ISO 639-1,
Country code: ISO 3166.
E.g. 'ca_EN' and 'ca_FR'.
AF AFGHANISTAN
AX ÅLAND ISLANDS
AL ALBANIA
DZ ALGERIA
AS AMERICAN SAMOA
AD ANDORRA
AO ANGOLA
…
aa Afar
ab Abkhazian
ae Avestan
af Afrikaans
ak Akan
am Amharic
an Aragonese
ar Arabic
…
The codes
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“Give the user the content that he wants,in the format that he understands.”
Localization
“Once he had the Babel Fish in his ear, Arthur understood perfectly.”
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A Localization Taxonomy
Where is it from?
What region is it for?
What region is it about?
In addition, there is a 4th localization dimension that defines the language.
Note that the dimensions define regions, not countries.
In the reference taxonomy for managed content in multinational organizations, every piece of content can be fully described by three dimensions related to geography:
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Where is it from?
This can be the name or location of a regional office, for instance.
This information is not very important for the site user in most situations
It can be important internally to control workflow and track content production
Press releases and articles from News feeds are well-known examples of how the source of content is made available to the user/consumer
Still, I don’t know a single example of a website taxonomy that uses this dimension for search and navigation
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What region is it for?
This dimension describes the target audience(s) for the content
It can be populated automatically based on business rules E.g. “the London office writes for the European markets”
Or manually, based on the judgment of an expert E.g. “this article is universal, therefore I will post it to the
global region”
A site typically uses this dimension to automatically retrieve content based on a user’s profile or selection of a region
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What region is it about?
Content metadata in its original sense, this dimension discusses what is “in” the content
The most important of the three dimensions, this one is what the users need to conduct searches and retrieve meaningful results
It is also the most difficult one to populate, because the person tagging the content must be a subject matter expert
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Traditional localization techniques deal with countries and languages
Country may be too granular or too coarse for your business objective
Markets do not always align with countries
Examples: EMEA, Asia, Central America
Country is limiting us
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Region is better
For fine-grained control, let countries roll up into regions, forming a geography dimension
Regions should align with markets, countries can be added to allow for local specifics
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Going global
The global level node of the geography dimension may not be at the top
Rolling up regions to a global category will create an unusable collection of content
Global can, however, be a separate and independent region, e.g. when there is a corresponding global market
Global content can be used for a global landing page that is transitional for most users
Region 1
Region 2
Region 3
Global
Region 1
Region 2
Region 3 Global
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One-dimensional Localization
Language only
Everybody gets to see the same content
User can select the language in which the content is presented
Suitable for global organizations with global content
No regional targeting of content possible
Content must be translated into all languages
Using a uniform page layout is unlikely
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Three-dimensional Localization
Content is not shared between Locales
Translations typically not required
User selects a Locale and gets content specific for this Locale
Used on News and Web portals with regional versions
Also used by global organizations with strong regional presences and autonomous regional content production
Today we plan to show you process, practice, and…
A closer look …
Compare: Sports, World, Karikaturen, etc.
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3½-dimensional Localization
Categories differ across Locales
Some similarities across categories can be deceiving, but:Even differences in the order are important
Where is Sports on the German site? In German media, Sports is not considered News
Where is World on the German site? German media often does not distinguish between
National and International politics
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Complex n-dimensional Taxonomy
Target region “Global”
Language “English”
Content category – up to 5 levels (3 in the example) “Indices” – “Equity” – “Italian Indices”
Content type “News & Analysis” – “Index News”
Content region “Europe”
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microsoft.com
Several years ago, Microsoft had a diverse set of loosely integrated local sites
There were common design cues, but specifically the content was not shared in any way
Imagine the cost of maintaining a local site in every country Microsoft does business in
Today, there is a single design, taxonomy, shared content, translation process, all the works.