There’s growing demand for multilingual content — and providing websites and digital tools in languages other than English is essential for accessibility.
Here are some tips to get started:
- Ensure your site provides a comparable user experience for English and multilingual users. This applies to content quality and maintenance and website look and feel.
- Conduct usability testing with audiences in multiple languages. This helps you ensure content and images are culturally relevant and clear.
- Make the language switcher or toggle easy to find. Typically, this option appears in the header or footer of every page.
- Enable visitors to choose their preferred language for navigating your site.
A quick note on translation — or transcreation
If your team is handling the actual translation of website content, it’s important to consider your approach. Translation software and built-in translation technology can certainly be useful, but they typically work by changing words from one language to another. This does not account for nuance, and it may not actually get your intended message across. On the other hand, transcreation means that a person who speaks the language goes beyond literally translating the words on the page to incorporate culturally relevant customs, norms, and examples. Transcreation is the gold standard — consider this method if you have the resources.
