Program

Many decisions made early in the design of a multilingual site will determine the capabilities for years to come, so should be carefully considered. That said, many key issues aren’t immediately obvious the first time developing a multilingual Web site, so this presentation attempts to pull out some important questions to ask when defining the requirements of your multilingual Web site.

This talk will explore the following:

Overall Site Structure - Will the site be in just a few languages, and the content be entirely parallel? Or will each language site basically be entirely separate, with some key page linkages? Or will some languages be used just for core areas (for instance, country-specific pages), but certain languages used for major institution-wide content? If some languages will be covered sparsely, how will lists of content be presented? Also, in the case of sparse translations, do you need to support some pieces of content only partially getting translated (for example, just an abstract getting translated)?
Admin Support - Does your support team need an easy way to find content even when it’s not in a language they speak? Who will be doing your translations, and are they already using tools you need to interface with? If content changes frequently, then do translators of different languages need to be notified appropriately? Do you need editing tools that support multiple languages at once, or will each translator/editor just be working in one language? Are there any special search requirements for site administrators?
Other technical issues - If you are supporting languages that are multi-byte, are there limits on any of your systems (for example, if you need to pass data to a site analytics tool, will you be able to pass all the information you need?). Some languages are more verbose than others – will that effect items such as how your breadcrumbs are handled? Are all the languages you want to provide supported by current operating systems?