News and updates on the Web globalization newsletter Global By Design
There is no internationally accepted definition of what a “translation” icon should look like. But here’s the icon websites tend to use: You see it many places these days — most often used to indicate the availability of automatic translation,…
Late last year Krispy Kreme entered its 39th foreign market: France. And it launched a localized website to match. The company plans to open 500 stores in France over the next five years. France is attracting a number of American…
For those of you keeping count this is number 20. Yes, as in 20 years. I’ll have much more to share about that later this year. But for now let’s focus on the next report. I’m in the middle of…
I know it appears that I’m out to punish Mailchimp — as I first started calling out its rookie mistakes back in 2021. I am a paid subscriber so I feel as if I’ve at least earned the right. What…
If someone from outside the US lands on your US-centric .com home page, what is their first impression? And what if they don’t speak English? What visual and textual clues will they look for when searching for a localized websites…
First of all, this device looks really cool. The ocean also looks inviting right about now. But while visiting the Flite website I couldn’t help but notice the US flag in the upper right corner. Perfect placement, by the way,…
I’ve announced the top 25 global websites from the 2023 Web Globalization Report Card. But that only tells part of the story. To better understand how companies compete against their peers, I grouped the websites into 13 categories — from…
I’m pleased to announce the publication of the 2023 Web Globalization Report Card. This is the 19th annual edition of the Report Card, yes, 19th. And while there are a number of very familiar faces in this list, there are some…
For many years, the addition of languages (as part of website localization) has ranked one of the least-promoted developments on any given website. Languages were added. End of story. Perhaps this is because localization teams have rarely been looked upon…
I recently joined Kathrin Bussmann for another chat about web globalization and emerging best practices. I hope you enjoy it!
The author William Gibson is widely attributed with the quote: The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet. This line popped into my head when I watched an insightful presentation by Rahul Goradia, a Microsoft designer, about designing…
Klarna is one of those Buy Now Pay Later companies that is seemingly on every ecommerce checkout page these days. And, not surprisingly, the company is expanding globally at a rapid pace. Shown here is the Japan home page: Francesco…
Last year, I noted that Mailchimp had begun its global expansion with a few rookie mistakes. Mailchimp was using its super-header to announce support for multiple languages: The globe icon was (and is) perfect. But the location was not sustainable;…
For the 2022 Web Globalization Report Card, we benchmarked the following 16 consumer technology websites: Adobe Apple Canon Dell Fujifilm HP Lenovo LG Microsoft Nikon Nintendo Panasonic Samsung Sony Toshiba Xiaomi (Mi) Adobe emerged as number one for a second year…
One of the four major benchmarking criteria of the Web Globalization Report Card is global reach. That is, what languages do you support? And how many languages do you support? To score a perfect 25 points in this category, a…