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What they don’t tell you when you translate your app

ericwbailey.design

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Re: What they don’t tell you when you translate your app

#231

Post by brigandish »

duskwuff wrote: post #194
brigandish wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone in Ireland is offended at the use of a Union Jack to signify the button for English language then they need to grow up. Fast.

So have another example: if you were to translate your application into Tibetan (for some reason), what flag would you use for it? (The Tibetan flag is literally illegal to display in Tibet, as the Chinese government considers it a symbol of the separatist movement. So you probably don't want to use that...)

I'd show them a picture of the Dalai Lama's face. Would that cause trouble? For whom?

Re: What they don’t tell you when you translate your app

#232

Post by brigandish »

chrismorgan wrote: post #209
brigandish wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unspoken assumption here is that you're designing for younger people, which is natural as most designers are younger, but that doesn't make it any better a recommendation than "never go below 18px and 20px is a better lower limit". Surely it depends on your audience and/or those you wish to attract.

A large part of my recommendation is consistency . For general content sites, it’s not good to be too different from the mean. Font family and size is definitely such a property where you don’t want to deviate too much: twenty years ago, 20px for body type would have been outrageously large; twenty years ago, 11px was definitely on the small side, but not outrageously small as it is now. Conventional sizes have defin…

> For general content sites, it’s not good to be too different from the mean.

The mean is decided by those designing sites and they are overwhelmingly younger people - in fact, usually they're among the youngest of all adult workers - and it shows. If sites were designed for the mean amongst society then the move would be to larger fonts.

Personally, I welcome sites that use larger font sizes, I'm not sure why I need to strain my eyes one iota for text in a virtually infinite space. I know I'm not alone (though perhaps for different reasons). Deviating from the mean would work for a substantial part of the population who are currently treated like second class citizens on the web.

> But once you’re in the range 16–18px, going larger just doesn’t help—the people that want to go larger will (or should) already be used to going larger by zooming in,

I've had to show several oldies how to zoom. They do get used to it because they have to.

> and you’re making life harder for everyone else by preventing the screen from fitting much content at once.

Do the people who need this not know how to zoom out?

Re: What they don’t tell you when you translate your app

#233

Post by maximus-decimus »

crazygringo wrote: post #162

> People may prefer the English experience because they expect the translated version to be inferior There are multiple comments here about how it usually is inferior. But even when it's not , there can still be reasons to stick to English. I've done a lot of work with Brazilian graphic designers, and they all use Photoshop/Illustrator in English -- the Portuguese version is essentially "unusable". Not because the tr…

It does apply to troubleshooting in other languages though. Tryin to fix my dad's French software issues over the phone when my own computer uses the English version of the software is its own version of hell.

Re: What they don’t tell you when you translate your app

#234

Post by zapzupnz »

yoz-y wrote: post #220
zapzupnz wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 5 cents from the antipodes (NZ, so it really should be 10 cents): yes. For so much of what we do, we have to do it on Europe and North America’s time. Being able to say “if we want to join that 9am conference call in New York, we have to be up at 1am”. Taking out time zones and saying “oh good, the meeting is at 9am” doesn’t help me to know what time in the middle of the night I have to be up — other than that it’…

The whole am/pm thing would also probably need to be ditched for military time. (Now that is a thing I would agree on doing anyways)

That’s just a different way to format the same thing. It doesn’t stop the sun being up in one place and down in another.

Re: What they don’t tell you when you translate your app

#235

Post by nicbou »

A few more based on my own experience:

* People don't always speak the language of the country they are in

* There are significant regional differences for a given language. As a French Canadian, I couldn't translate a website to French because it would sound wrong to someone in France. For example, we have vastly different sets of English loanwords.

* The order of things can be different. For instance, German addresses put the door number after the street name. This can break your layout or even your UX in subtle ways.

* You must choose formal or informal pronouns (tu/vous, du/Sie) and use them consistently.

* Labels can make no sense if you don't know what the UI is like. Context is important for translators.

Re: What they don’t tell you when you translate your app

#236

Post by lmm »

zapzupnz wrote: post #213
lmm wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's unambiguous On the contrary, if you just use the name of the language then it's not at all clear to a user who's using the "wrong" language where the language selector is.

Then supplement it with a standard language switcher icon: either A/文 or a globe.

That will still be less recognizable for most users than a flag.
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