Jul 11
8
Website localization and culture
Now a day’s the usage of internet is increasing day by day. Through out the world usage of internet is growing, even from the non-English speaking countries. In the end of the year 2002 the people using internet from non-English countries are around 32%. This figure is increasing constantly. Using internet we can create our own website for many purposes. All the business firms are using websites for their advertising purpose. Now all the business firms have the awareness of the benefits of Website Localization.
The process of modifying a website as accessible and culturally suits to attract customers is known as website localization. This is a multi layered process, which includes both the experts in programming and the cultural knowledge. If any of these misses, then we will get an error in localization process. In most of the cases we will get an error in the linguistic/cultural input which is used to done the localization process. By seeing the following examples we can know the importance of the Website Localization.
The conversion of the website from one language to other is not an easy job. Many thing need to be consider and we need to take care of those considerations while translating the content of the website. The variation of the language need to be considered carefully while converting the language. If the website that we need to change is in Arabic language then we need to ensure the modern standard Arabic is employed by the translator. We need to analyze the language style and the customers too. We need to take care of the vocabulary, grammar and the sentence formation too.
If the customers are youth or middle aged then the language we use must be relaxed. The language we use not understandable then we will get a problem in understanding the website. We must know the exact need of the new website. The English websites will not change automatically to any other language website. We have to remember the culture and society of the countries. The images also have the importance in making a website. Images will carry the cultural information. The images will give an impression about our product of the company. The images may also have negative impression, so we need to take care about those pictures.
The symbols with images may cause a problem in this localization. The use of different symbols, icons may cause many problems. They mean differently in different cultures. Using animal pictures may also cause a problem. And the colors that we use will also have different culture. So it is better to avoid the colors in our logo website. A common problem that we get in localization is the effect of the layout in translation. We need to examine the written content in the localization process. We need to focus on both the company and the product.
So the culture will play an important role in website localization. The impact of the culture on localization is much. So we need to know the culture of each country to create a local website.
