Re: Revised gateway FAQ

Hello John,

Great work! Some comments below; if something has
already been discussed, please tell me.

At 09:34 04/12/23, John Yunker wrote:
 >Hi all,
 >
 >Based on input from the call today, here is the revised text and image 
attachments.
 >
 >
 >------------------------------
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >FAQ Global Gateway
 >
 > Question
 >What are the best practices for using a pull-down menu on my company's 
Web site to direct visitors to their country Web sites?

Is this the only FAQ on Global Gateways that we will ever have? If not,
I suggest to thange the title to "FAQ Global Gateway Pulldown" or some such.

 > Background
 >As companies launch an increasing number of localized Web sites, 
user-friendly global navigation grows in importance. The term "global 
gateway" is frequently used to refer to the visual and technical devices 
that Web sites employ to direct visitors to their content. One of the more 
popular devices is a pull-down menu on the home page that includes links to 
the other locales.
 >
 > Answer
 >The pull-down menu is not a silver bullet for global navigation and it 
may not be the best solution for your Web site. If your site supports only 
a handful of locales, it is better to avoid using a pull-down menu 
altogether and simply include links directly to each locale. Also, if your 
company offers more than 20 locales, a pull-down menu is not very usable 
for those Web users who must scroll to the end of the list.

This is somehow given in the background, but should probably also appear in the
answer: A pull-down menu can very well be a good solution! [i.e. say things
positively rather than just let the reader infer that if the concerns don't 
apply,
it's a good solution (or, if you don't think it's that a good solution in 
general,
say so more clearly)]

 >However, if you do decide to use a pull-down menu, here are some best 
practices to keep in mind:

Probably leave out the "However,", or reword more positively, such as simply
"When using a pull-down menu,..."

 >1. Locate the pull-down menu at the top of all Web pages, preferably to 
the right side. This location is highly visible, reducing the chance that 
the visitor will not see it. Furthermore, an increasing number of Web sites 
have located their global gateways in this location, conditioning Web users 
to come to expect it here.
 >
 > 2. Include an icon of a globe or map next to the pull-down menu. You 
cannot expect Web users who are not fluent in English to understand "Select 
language." Universally recognized icons communicate to people regardless of 
what language they speak. Over time, the globe icon could be as widely 
recognized as the shopping cart icon. See the example below from the 
Philips Web site. (image: philips.jpg)

map -> world map? (coul be any map otherwise)
"Over time, the globe icon could be as widely recognized": Can we say something
like "The globe icon is more and more getting recognized ..., "? I.e., can
we express this in a way that says that it's already starting to be recognized
rather than say that we are not yet there?

 >3. Translate the menu options as necessary. Instead of including a link 
on the pull-down menu that reads, for example, "French" the link should 
read "Fran軋is."

This needs to more clearly indicate that each language label is supposed to be
in the target language.

 >To display a mix of non-Latin languages, such as Arabic, Russian and 
Japanese, your Web page will need to support the UTF-8 (Unicode) encoding. 
Please note that if you do switch to UTF-8, the Web user must have a font 
that can display this range of scripts; most new operating systems do ship 
with such a font. Be aware that a Web user in the US, for example, may see 
empty boxes in place of the Japanese text while the user in Japan will see 
the text just fine.
 >
 >If you do not want to change encodings, an alternative is to embed 
non-Latin text within graphics located outside of the pull-down menu, as 
demonstrated by the Symantec Web site. (image: symantec.gif)

What about numeric character references? In a decent browser, these are
supposed to work as well as the actual (e.g. UTF-8 encoded) characters.
Pull-downs, similar to title bars, often have more limitations than the
page itself, but this is usually due to the browsers calling the system
widgets, and these in turn using the system character encoding rather
than Unicode (in particular on older systems or when not using wide-character
APIs). But in this case, this is not an encoding issue, and should not
affect what ultimately shows up in the pull-down.
There are other browsers (in partilar Netscape 4) that do not correctly
interpret numeric character references, but these browsers should be
ignorable by now.


Regards,    Martin.

Received on Friday, 24 December 2004 06:37:39 UTC