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ACM SIGCHI Cross-Cultural Issues in the HCI Community (Open Discussion)

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Subject:
From:
Gary PERLMAN <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Gary PERLMAN <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 14 Sep 1998 09:36:42 -0400
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I received only one reply to my request for ideas about testing
internationalized software, which included:
 * don't force a phone number format (e.g., (___) ___ - ____)
 * make sure translated strings fit (on buttons, in fields, ...)

This weekend, we released the FirstSearch in English, French,
and Spanish.  There is a demo version at:
        http://www.oclc.org/cgi-oclc/fs-sample.scr
which will log you in to the system with access to some
practice databases (thousands instead of millions of records).
You can change language at the bottom of any screen.
(The real system lets you choose language from the login
screen, via scripts, and using the browser language preference).

Feel free to send me comments.

Multilingual FirstSearch was an intersting process with many challenges.
It was interesting to see translators and subject experts arguing
about the right terminology as much as we argue in English.
Probably the only choice we made that I regret was to represent
the language choice by the English name (english, french, spanish)
in our code instead of the more standard codes (en, fr, es), but
we can change that for the next system.

Now we'll be watching how usage varies by language.
I hope some people use those help files (they seldom
do in English) -- they cost a lot to translate.

Gary PERLMAN, OCLC Online Computer Library Center
6565 Frantz Road,  Dublin, Ohio  43017  USA
Voice: +1-614-761-5058  Fax: +1-614-793-0915
[log in to unmask]  http://www.acm.org/~perlman/

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