Adventures in web globalization, since 2002
Nike made an important improvement to its global gateway over the past year that I want to draw your attention to. First, let’s take a look at the home page, circa 2015: If you look closely at the bottom of …
For the 2016 Web Globalization Report Card, we studied 11 enterprise technology websites: Autodesk Cisco Systems EMC IBM Huawei Intel Oracle SAP Texas Instruments Xerox VMware With support for 23 languages, Intel is not the language leader in this category; Cisco Systems …
Apple can’t seem to rid itself of using flags on its global gateway. And, yes, I’ve been writing about this for awhile now.
Every time Apple launches a redesign I get my hopes up.
But this latest design merely offered up newly “flattened” map icons, as shown here:
Current Apple Global Gateway:
Previous Apple Global Gateway:
Regular readers of this blog know well that I advocate for a global gateway icon on websites and apps — a visual element that lets users know, regardless of their language, where to find the global gateway menu. I recommend using …
When you welcome visitors into your home, you probably don’t usher them directly to the basement. Yet when it comes to websites, this is exactly how many companies treat visitors from around the world. That is, they expect visitors to scroll down to …
Every time Apple updates its web design (which it did recently) I get hopeful that the global gateway will receive a similar upgrade. But this has not yet happened. Apple’s global gateway remains firmly entrenched in the use of flags. And …
I’m optimistic about the year ahead. I base this optimism in part on discussions I’ve had this year with dozens of marketing and web teams across about ten countries. While every company has its own unique worldview and challenges, a …
Normally I like to talk about companies that have been steadily improving their global gateways. Occasionally though I encounter a company that appears to be heading in reverse. E*TRADE is heading in reverse. About two years ago, here was the E*TRADE global …
I’ll admit I knew nothing about WhatsApp before I read that Facebook was about to buy the company (or not). So I went to its website and was pleasantly surprised to see a simple but effective global gateway. Let’s start …
Nike has a brand new website and they’ve made a few navigational changes along the way. For starters, it appears that Nike is now using geolocation to detect the location of the user’s browser. This means Nike is no longer …
There’s a good article on Brainsparks about how rarely users get around to changing their default computer settings. “Less than 5% of the users we surveyed had changed any settings at all.” This statistic has great relevance to web globalization. …
Payroll services company ADP demonstrates that you don’t necessarily have to choose between using a flag icon or using a globe icon on your global gateway. As shown below, the company uses both: And here is the Brazil home page: …
One of the many things I love about global gateways is that I never stop discovering new ones. Here are notes on a few gateways I’ve stumbled across over the past few weeks. Let’s begin with a gateway that exhibits a …
How’s this for a visibly engaging global gateway: It’s the landing page for Protest Boardwear — a Netherlands-based clothing outfit. Unfortunately, the map itself isn’t clickable, which violates a cardinal rule of global gateways. If you display a map on …
I’m happy to see Microsoft launch a new global gateway on its home page. Here’s a detailed view: Notice how the country/region options are all nicely presented in the native languages. You might wonder about how the list was sorted, with …