White paper

What’s worse? Viewing a website which appears in a single language or viewing a site which is partially or poorly translated in a number of languages and/or inadequately localized? In general our reaction is more negative towards a poorly executed multilingual site. It reflects detrimentally on the organization providing the site, creates customer discord and potentially threatens revenues. It’s similar to arriving in a hotel only to be greeted with your name spelt wrongly or mispronounced; it immediately creates a negative impression of the establishment and can quite easily—if other language errors occur—lead to you taking your business elsewhere.

The fact is that in today’s Internet-driven, global environment, it is more important than ever to develop a website in which content is carefully crafted and adapted to meet specific local needs and requirements. Too many organizations unfortunately continue to begin their global web site strategy development with one country in mind, and then attempt to map it onto other languages later.