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I think the real lesson here is to to identify those assumptions that may be incorrect for the culture your app is targeted towards and make reasonable accommod

by LargeWu 16y ago

I think the real lesson here is to to identify those assumptions that may be incorrect for the culture your app is targeted towards and make reasonable accommodations for those cases. The most common ones are probably the easiest to deal with...long names, only one name, punctuation in names. Just relax your validation requirements. We just took care of 99% of names not common to western culture. But I don't think if you are designing an application for, say, the Olathe, KS youth rec sports registration website that you need to be too concerned with folks who have names that have characters not mapped in Unicode. If a person's name is so unusual that it doesn't fit even culturally relaxed input requirements, then they've probably already dealt with that problem before.

patio11 16y ago
I heartily agree that "think what you're assuming" is a good take away here, but can't support "think what culture your app is targeting", because I've seen that virtually invariably blow up straight in the teams' faces. Many Japanese people think racial/cultural homogeneity is practically a national trademark, and this issue has bitten nearly every Big Freaking Enterprise system I've ever seen in Japan. Do you think your global-facing web app or small American town is going to be less culturally diverse than Japan is? That strikes me as highly improbable.
- LargeWu 16y ago
  I think you're missing my point. Having relaxed standards, such as I outlined, will account for nearly all special cases for a target audience that is reasonably homogeneous. Of course if you are designing a global facing application, then yes, you need to account for a wider range of possibilities. But for many applications designing around cultural norms, but being liberal about what you accept, is perfectly acceptable where the benefit of accommodating for low-probability cases does not justify the costs. And, like I mentioned, in cases for applications targeted towards a homogeneous group, for those that have names so far outside the cultural norms that even liberal standards cannot accommodate them, then they've probably encountered the same thing already before, and they've come up with a way to adapt. Allowing a liberal range is like me going to France and asking for ketchup with all of my food. But having a really unusual name, like one with unmappable characters, is like me going to Riyadh and expecting them to serve booze with my meal. Should I be allowed to drink there just because it's acceptable in my culture? No. It's illegal there, and I just have to adapt whether I like it or not. Again, I emphasize, what I am advocating is for applications with a culturally homogeneous audience, not global, multicultural apps.
- autarch 16y ago
  Japanese people living in the US are no doubt perfectly comfortable writing their name out in Latin characters for the benefit of the barbarians they live with.
  - patio11 16y ago
    Many Japanese professionals who have call to be in the United States -- but not all of them! -- will write their name something like YAMASHITA Taro, which is your clue that you should be calling him Mr. Yamashita rather than Mr. Taro. Or Dr. Yamashita, in the case of my client who was not actually named that. Some of them, including at least one prominent politician and several people I represented in a professional capacity, are adamant that reversing the order is incorrect. (Unsurprisingly, many Americans are unaware of this convention. Sadly, many of them persist in being unaware of it even when it is written on the meeting briefing and explained verbally right before the meeting starts. sigh Twelve corrections in 3 days -- my client was not happy for that trip.) Does your hotel, car rental service, university, etc, handle this case correctly? We blazed a path of frustration through Chicago and Michigan last time. Further fun: a Taro Yamashita born and raised in the United States (or any other Taro, for that matter), and present at the same university for the same conference, might request the exact opposite treatment! And if you spell his name as YAMASHITA Taro on the meeting agenda in defiance of his preference, you're doing it wrong!
    - _delirium 16y ago
      But who's really doing it wrong? If someone expects another culture to conform to their own culture's preferences when a guest there, perhaps they're the ones making the error. I actually attended a conference in Japan that wrote all names, including mine, as "FAMILYNAME Givenname" on the program. I personally write and prefer "Givenname Familyname", but I don't see it as a cause for offense. As a guest in their country, I consider it their prerogative to go by their local conventions. I mean, wouldn't it be pretty chauvinist for me to get offended at it or demand that they follow Western name ordering? It feels like it'd be in the same category as complaining that they don't serve my favorite American food at the conference, or that the cars are driving on the wrong side of the road.

by LargeWu 16y ago

patio11 16y ago

I heartily agree that "think what you're assuming" is a good take away here, but can't support "think what culture your app is targeting", because I've seen that virtually invariably blow up straight in the teams' faces. Many Japanese people think racial/cultural homogeneity is practically a national trademark, and this issue has bitten nearly every Big Freaking Enterprise system I've ever seen in Japan. Do you think your global-facing web app or small American town is going to be less culturally diverse than Japan is? That strikes me as highly improbable.

LargeWu 16y ago
I think you're missing my point. Having relaxed standards, such as I outlined, will account for nearly all special cases for a target audience that is reasonably homogeneous. Of course if you are designing a global facing application, then yes, you need to account for a wider range of possibilities. But for many applications designing around cultural norms, but being liberal about what you accept, is perfectly acceptable where the benefit of accommodating for low-probability cases does not justify the costs. And, like I mentioned, in cases for applications targeted towards a homogeneous group, for those that have names so far outside the cultural norms that even liberal standards cannot accommodate them, then they've probably encountered the same thing already before, and they've come up with a way to adapt. Allowing a liberal range is like me going to France and asking for ketchup with all of my food. But having a really unusual name, like one with unmappable characters, is like me going to Riyadh and expecting them to serve booze with my meal. Should I be allowed to drink there just because it's acceptable in my culture? No. It's illegal there, and I just have to adapt whether I like it or not. Again, I emphasize, what I am advocating is for applications with a culturally homogeneous audience, not global, multicultural apps.
autarch 16y ago
Japanese people living in the US are no doubt perfectly comfortable writing their name out in Latin characters for the benefit of the barbarians they live with.
- patio11 16y ago
  Many Japanese professionals who have call to be in the United States -- but not all of them! -- will write their name something like YAMASHITA Taro, which is your clue that you should be calling him Mr. Yamashita rather than Mr. Taro. Or Dr. Yamashita, in the case of my client who was not actually named that. Some of them, including at least one prominent politician and several people I represented in a professional capacity, are adamant that reversing the order is incorrect. (Unsurprisingly, many Americans are unaware of this convention. Sadly, many of them persist in being unaware of it even when it is written on the meeting briefing and explained verbally right before the meeting starts. sigh Twelve corrections in 3 days -- my client was not happy for that trip.) Does your hotel, car rental service, university, etc, handle this case correctly? We blazed a path of frustration through Chicago and Michigan last time. Further fun: a Taro Yamashita born and raised in the United States (or any other Taro, for that matter), and present at the same university for the same conference, might request the exact opposite treatment! And if you spell his name as YAMASHITA Taro on the meeting agenda in defiance of his preference, you're doing it wrong!
  - _delirium 16y ago
    But who's really doing it wrong? If someone expects another culture to conform to their own culture's preferences when a guest there, perhaps they're the ones making the error. I actually attended a conference in Japan that wrote all names, including mine, as "FAMILYNAME Givenname" on the program. I personally write and prefer "Givenname Familyname", but I don't see it as a cause for offense. As a guest in their country, I consider it their prerogative to go by their local conventions. I mean, wouldn't it be pretty chauvinist for me to get offended at it or demand that they follow Western name ordering? It feels like it'd be in the same category as complaining that they don't serve my favorite American food at the conference, or that the cars are driving on the wrong side of the road.