Globalization

Language Issues

• Translation challenges
• Problems with automatic translation
• Character sets
• 7 bit ASCII
• 8 bit ASCII
• Unicode (includes UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32)
• Software applications with language settings
• Web applications that check locale of client

Questions for discussion

1. Should menu text always be translated into a user's native language?
2. Should the translator be most familiar with the source language and culture or the target language and culture?
3. Which languages cannot be represented with 8-bit character encodings?

Notational Issues

• Dates
• Money
• Time

Questions for discussion

1. Is 1.000 EUR a good deal for a CD Box set?
2. What date is 10/4/06?
3. What are the different ways to represent time?

Culture-specific Symbols

• Color (article on cultural differences)
• Icons

Questions for discussion

1. What should a Mailbox icon look like?
2. Should icons ever be used?

Some web site comparisons

• Amazon: United States, Canada, France and Spanish
• Apple: United States, Korea, Latin America
• Yahoo: United States, Canada in French, World Listings

How are these listings the same? How are they different?