Re: [WAI-IG] Serving my page in the right language

> changing the settings. Think of libraries, schools, Internet cafes.
> - negative UNLESS a web site provides an option to choose language

In my view, the only safe thing to do in that sort of environment is
to reload a clean system image between every user.  There are big
security and privacy threats if you don't.

> I'd also like to see how many people don't know about this setting. I'll 
> make a prediction though: a very large majority.

Yes.  In general, the vast majority of computer users are not computer
literate (which is also another good reason why each web site should
not have its own user interface paradigm - the users won't even be able
to cope with the platform's standard paradigm).

However, I would suggest that proportion of users who can find the
language option is no less, and possibly slightly more, than the proportion
of people with poor sight who know about the magnifier tool or how to
override author font sizes, and similar to the proportion capable of
applying basic security measures to their browser.

Selling computer systems unfortunately relies on fooling people into thinking
that they are much simpler than they are and that they need no more support
than that provided by people, in call centres, reading scripts.

Received on Wednesday, 24 March 2004 01:26:23 UTC