There is a great article posted on the Colour Lovers blog about designing software interfaces and graphics with an awareness for color blindness. The article is written by Chris Campbell. As with most accessibility considerations, designing for those who are color blind makes graphics more effective for all users. In designing for international users, it’s also important to remember there are cultural differences in how people react to different colors.
Features
Accessibility, Color, Design
If your organization does business in more than one part of the world, your web team faces the challenge of internationalization and localization of the website.
Internationalization refers to making a product ready for use throughout the world, and localization refers to making a product ready for use in a particular geographic area. For a website, internationalization requires making the code work worldwide, especially to support presenting the site in multiple languages, and developing a design and content for audiences with different cultural expectations.
Several articles are available to help meet these challenges. Four are presented here.
Several basic tips for internationalizing code are presented in Implementing Websites For Internationalization.
If you are providing a website in multiple languages, it’s desirable to avoid creating and maintaining multiple versions of the site. Internationalize JSP-based Websites presents one method.
A design blog addresses the challenge of providing a way for users to change to their preferred language. The author notes there is no standard interface for this. For details, visit Design Examples of Website Internationalization and Localization.
Creating content for readers worldwide is the focus of 7 Easy Tips to Internationalize Your Website. This is part of a larger guide with many resources, Culture Customized Content.
Features
Communication, Cross-cultural communication, Design, Internationalization, Localization, Marketing, Resource
The International Technical Communication (ITC) SIG of the Society for Technical Communication is very pleased to announce a partnership with The Localization Institute, bringing ITC members and other technical communication professionals a webinar series. “Writing and Designing for an International Audience,” taught by Nancy Hoft, is a 4-part series that can help you hone some of your communication skills.
This partnership will allow members of the ITC SIG of the Society for Technical Communication to subscribe to the live series at a reduced rate. Anyone can attend, but ITC members alone get the benefit of the rate reduction.
For complete information, registration and more, visit:
http://www.localizationinstitute.com/index.cfm?onlinecat=techwrite
ITC SIG News
Communication, Cross-cultural communication, Design, Event, Translation, Writing and editing
