- From: <tina@greytower.net>
- Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 12:37:33 +0200 (CEST)
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
On 22 Sep, Paul Arzul wrote: > On Sat 20-Sep-2003 at 12:44:14PM +0100, Jonathan Chetwynd wrote: >> >> Flags are not that helpful, is their a resource similar to ascii with >> standardised (gif) flags? >> what do people feel about this approach? > > for more than you wanted to know about flags and languages: > > http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/flags.html That particular article has been offered as a reference many, many times. Not too long ago there was a debate regarding the topic in the ciwah newsgroup - it ended, as it always does, with insult. However, I would like to offer up a different opinion. Flags as symbol for languages are not, by users looking for content in their own language, sees as insulting, stupid, or dysfunctional. The large accessibility project that I've mentioned before contained, among other things, questions put to immigrants on language issues with Swedish government websites. Several of the answers indicate that users find flags "Perhaps not perfect" but "It's a common way to indicate language, easy to spot, and intuitive". I'd suggest keeping the *users* in mind. > hope that helps, Actually, no. People I've shown that article to - people outside of the web "development" culture - tend to react with agreement to the article, until they run across the colonial references. Then they tend to disregard it. I'd suggest not using that article if you want to convince people that flags are a bad habit. It's far too emotional. -- - Tina Holmboe Greytower Technologies tina@greytower.net http://www.greytower.net/ [+46] 0708 557 905
Received on Monday, 22 September 2003 06:37:51 UTC