3 ms·

It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem which is incredibly frustrating, I wish websites would start to respect it so users start to configure their browser pro

It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem which is incredibly frustrating, I wish websites would start to respect it so users start to configure their browser properly. Users don't configure it (and quite possibly don't know how) so many websites ignore it. Many websites ignore it so it isn't that useful to learn how to configure it.

reaperducer 7y ago
On my sites, the URL parameters wins. For example, when the user is explicitly changing a page's language. #2 is the site language cookie from a previous visit. If that fails, #3 is the language the browser requests. If all those fail, English, because it is the most common language the company uses internally. In our user testing, we run into a lot of situations where the computer's primary user, and the person who set it up, are a child, who speaks English. But our site is more geared toward their parents, who often will speak the language of their homeland. For this reason, I make it stupidly easy to change languages, and we have a policy that ALL content has to be translated into English, Spanish, and Chinese, which covers 99.8% of our customers. You don't find out these sorts of things through modern "telemetry" gathering and such current methods of testing. You find these things out by going into the field and watching your customers use your products. But interacting with wetware is beneath people in the SV bubble.
satysin 7y ago
Perhaps I am wrong but in my experience Chrome, Firefox and the platform included browsers all set the browser language to the OS language by default. While not a perfection solution I feel if the user is able to understand the language of the OS they are using then giving them a website in the same language is much better than picking one based on an IP location. I totally agree the browser language options are hidden with a pretty crappy UI that no normal user would find and use easily.

reaperducer 7y ago

On my sites, the URL parameters wins. For example, when the user is explicitly changing a page's language. #2 is the site language cookie from a previous visit. If that fails, #3 is the language the browser requests. If all those fail, English, because it is the most common language the company uses internally. In our user testing, we run into a lot of situations where the computer's primary user, and the person who set it up, are a child, who speaks English. But our site is more geared toward their parents, who often will speak the language of their homeland. For this reason, I make it stupidly easy to change languages, and we have a policy that ALL content has to be translated into English, Spanish, and Chinese, which covers 99.8% of our customers. You don't find out these sorts of things through modern "telemetry" gathering and such current methods of testing. You find these things out by going into the field and watching your customers use your products. But interacting with wetware is beneath people in the SV bubble.

satysin 7y ago

Perhaps I am wrong but in my experience Chrome, Firefox and the platform included browsers all set the browser language to the OS language by default. While not a perfection solution I feel if the user is able to understand the language of the OS they are using then giving them a website in the same language is much better than picking one based on an IP location. I totally agree the browser language options are hidden with a pretty crappy UI that no normal user would find and use easily.