Australian Infront

Designing for foreign language websites

Posted 20.03.2012 @ 8.48PM

Anyone had any experience with designing websites for foreign languages which are read from right to left, especially the Arabic language. Got any tips regarding development, legibility, usability etc?

Thanks

Posted 21.03.2012 @ 10.33AM

That is a good question.
I've never had to experience building a website like this but there should be plugins out there that will allow for language translations.

Posted 21.03.2012 @ 6.27PM

Radio Australia is a good example of a website that's primarily in English language but caters for a number of others. I can invite the developer in to help with you question if you like.

English - http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/pacific
Tok Pisin - http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/tokpisin
Chinese - http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/chinese
Burmese - http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/burmese
Khmer - http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/khmer

Previously I've worked on websites that had to display in 5 different languages, and it came down to a few basic rules.

1. German is always at least 150% longer than any other language, therefore you have to design your content around the longest copy (unless you make some smarts).
2. Character encoding is important, everything needs to to UTF-8 (from memory)
3. Translations need to be contextual, and written by people in their own language. If not don't bother.

Posted 23.03.2012 @ 2.27PM

Thanks for the reply Alister. How do you go about selecting fonts? Do some fonts include certain foreign language character sets?

Nice work on the Radio Australia website.

Posted 24.03.2012 @ 10.41AM

Font selection is important, so the ones with foreign language character sets is advisable. Wish I could take the credit for the current RA website, it's a great site. I was responsible for the previous incarnation :)