Language Filtering
Consider filtering for language on site entrance
We recently completed a WebIQ project for a large international manufacturing company based in the U.S. Their site, which supports their customers worldwide, brings many visitors who are very technical and who visit the site for technical reasons. As discovered through the WebIQ data, several issues arose due to visitors who were unable to find their native language on the site. Even though the site supported multiple languages, it was up to the visitors to find their language using the menus on the site. The primary menu for language selection was cryptically worded, which caused user confusion, particularly for those visitors who were not fluent in English. The solution is to filter visitors at site entrance and force them to choose the language of their choice before loading the Homepage. We have seen this effectively implemented on a number of sites.
The drop-down displays a list of supported countries and the checkbox allows the visitors language choice to be saved for subsequent visits. The only potential issue here is that some visitors may not understand enough English to determine the purpose of the checkbox. By presenting this type of filter mechanism at the beginning of the site visit, the problem of visitors not finding their native language will be minimized.