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By Anna Langhorne

Are you playing hide and seek?
Many U.S. organizations with a web presence are like young children playing hide and seek in the park: They are the toddler who thinks he is effectively camouflaged by a tree only 6 inches in diameter, because as he looks to make sure he has not been found out, his view of the world is blocked by the trunk of that tree. Yet, for the seeker it is readily apparent where the hider is located because he really is in relatively full public view. Organizations in the U.S. seem to minimize or ignore the global presence they presume the moment they launch their web sites. For the majority of U.S. web sites, the opportunity to address a worldwide audience is wasted.

This article is of no use to those folks who do not see the value in looking around either side of the "tree trunk". However, for those individuals who recognize the Internet as a global medium with 57% of the users residing outside the United States (source: Computer Industry Almanac), this article will provide an overview of the relationship between web usability and globalization and online globalization success.

What is usability?
Usability is the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use (cf. ISO 9241 part 11). General usability attributes include learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, satisfaction, and reliability (Nielsen, J. 1993, 2000; Bevan, N. 2000).

In the context of the web, usability refers to the process of identifying user needs, determining a site model, and validating the user interface. Usability engineers may employ discovery and research techniques ranging from task analysis to user testing. Ideally, this process begins in the discovery phase and is engaged throughout the life cycle. In the absence of usability, a web site has been developed based on intuition, not science. The risk in neglecting usability is developing a web site which few visitors, both domestic and international, can navigate or use.

What is globalization?
According to Hamid Mowlana (1996), globalization is "the process of structuration that encompasses homogenization and heterogenization" (p. 198). With regard to the Internet, globalization refers to the process of offering information, services, and products through a web site to serve international markets.

There are two approaches to globalization: internationalization and localization. The former is the development of one standard to serve all audiences, markets, or needs, while the latter refers to creating a culture-specific environment for one audience or locale.

Examples of internationalized web sites include BMW, McDonald's, Amazon, IKEA (Global and Italy), and IBM. In these examples, a single web template is used to address several cultures, but the content changes according to the language or locale of each target audience.

Examples of localized web sites include IKEA (Germany and U.S.A.), Ford Motor, and Levi Strauss & Co.; the web site interface and language is tailored to each audience.

Globalization factors: what makes a good site
Internationalized and localized web sites address the following issues in their interfaces:

• format,
• communication style,
• language translation,
• culture,
• customs,
• icons,
• hardware, and
• software.

This list is by no means exhaustive and the components of the list can and should be further derived. However, this provides a starting point for understanding globalization dynamics. These issues exist within the domain of usability because they impact the user interface and site model.

A web interface must be designed to accommodate all cultures, or target one culture specifically; address differences in date, time, currency, address, credit cards, measurement standards and paper size formats. With regard to communication, include instructions in the native language (BMW adheres to this rule) and offer relevant information.

For example, if a domestic company is not able to ship products internationally, that information needs to be clearly communicated to the site's international visitors. Levi Strauss & Co. invested vast resources in localizing their web site around the globe; however, they neglected to translate into Korean the "please wait" message that plays for nearly a minute while the Flash loads.

Icons are important visual cues, but they are not universally valid. For example, the Gerber baby pictured on the baby food jars is a well-known symbol of Gerber. Gerber did not realize that in the African market many people are illiterate and rely on label pictures to identify package contents. Therefore, when Gerber started selling their baby food in the market using the same labels as in the U.S., Africans interpreted the labels as jars of human babies. Online, the shopping cart is a useful metaphor for U.S. shoppers; e-shoppers understand the cart represents a container of the items being purchased from the web site (IBM uses the shopping cart icon for each of their international web sites). For European shoppers, this may cause confusion because they shop at the market with a basket.

Translation is important; Forrester reported international visitors are three times more likely to explore the site and purchase when presented with a site in their native language. Forrester also reported that 37 of the Fortune 100 web sites supported languages other than English (June 2000). However, the interface needs to accommodate changes in screen real estate consumption. Translating from English to another language may increase the web space requirement by 30-40%; this is a job for usability. Related to translation is language. There does not exist a one-to-one relationship between languages and countries. Therefore, using a country flag to represent a culture may be ineffective. Procter & Gamble uses the country flag metaphor. Notice how the flags are nearly imperceptible, another usability violation).

The country infrastructure is of additional concern; what are the software and hardware constraints of the population? What is the Internet connection speed, the most common modem and browser type?

Equally important is culture: the social structure, religion, customs, values, and norms. Investigating culture is important because it allows us to be knowledgeable about what is important and meaningful to an unfamiliar group of people. There are many offline examples of cultural faux pas. Pepsi's slogan, "come alive with the Pepsi generation," translated into Chinese meant "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the grave".

However, one doesn't have to look abroad for examples of cultural insensitivity: North Caroliners are college football zealots and strongly identify with their team colors. Light blue is symbolic of the University of North Carolina, dark blue is a Duke University color, and Wolf Pack Red is North Carolina State. The arena committee overlooked this when they commissioned the new sports arena with seats in the wrong shade of red. The fans were so outraged that there may now be plans to replace the seating upholstery. In this context, cultural associations are important enough to justify considering tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in retrofitting costs.

Meeting of the minds: usability and globalization
A significant proportion of the current web environment is populated with unusable sites. Think about all those web sites in English that are slow, confusing, and in many cases broken. Now, many of those sites are being translated into additional languages. This does not mean the Web site is globalized. It does mean that the previously unusable English site is now unusable in additional languages. The "I will build it and they will come" philosophy is false. Every user interface needs to be developed and validated with research and testing. Now the message should be clear; web globalization is a process requiring extensive preparation and visioning, in combination with usability and cultural research and strategy.

Lessons learned
The web is global by design. By design, usability on the web means accounting for users from different cultural and linguistic background. As is often the case, there is no silver bullet but the following four items will help you on the path to international web usability:

1. Do your homework (understand your objectives and your target audiences). 2. Translation is not localization.
3. Culture matters. Respect it.
4. Engage in globalization with reasonable resource expectations (time, effort, and money).

Internet resources for globalization and usability

Here is a list of Internet sites that provide a variety of information ranging from country customs to international business assistance to usability information.

• http://www.cio.com/forums/global
• http://www.culturegrams.com/culturgram2000.htm
• http://usableweb.com
• http://www.useit.com
• http://globalbusinessmag.com
• http://www.rankxerox.com/globaldesign/paper/paper1.htm
• http://www.globalisation.org/
• http://www.techreview.com/articles/july00/dertouzos.htm

References
Forrester Research. (June 2000). The Multilingual Site Blueprint.
Bevan, N. (1997). In: Proceedings of HCI International'97, San Francisco, 24-30 August 1997, Elsevier.
Mowlana, H. ( 1996). Global Communication in Transition: The End of Diversity. Sage.
Nielsen, J. (2000). Designing Web Usability. New Riders Publishing, Indianapolis.
Nielsen, J. (1993). Usability Engineering. Morgan Kaufman, San Diego.

Anna Langhorne, Ph.D. is a senior usability engineer and globalization lead for marchFIRST, Cincinnati. She is currently engaged in several web globalization projects at marchFIRST. She can be reached at anna.langhorne@marchFIRST.com.

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