why are website language switchers in the current language?
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this is a region switcher, rather than a language switcher (the website may of course be conflating the two, though)
You are right, it is a region switcher. I didn't realize that, maybe because the "change region" button was in a language I didn't know?
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the last one piss me off so much, especially when they redirect you and you don't have anyway to load the English version...
It’s like all the developers in the field got handed access to some IP dataset and they’re just looking for reasons to use it. Screw the users I guess?
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I'm not saying it should include English, I was just using it for clarification. I think each language / country should be in the native language.
I only realized the list is a region selector after it was pointed out to me. Maybe this proves my point, I didn't know what the button I pressed was for
Having the region/country name in the website language does make sense. Language names however...Flags do help, but there are none in this example (mobile or desktop version). Sometimes flags can be confused too (Romania, Moldova, Chad).
I don't have a solution, and I'm not the usual ranter, I mostly post in the cooking community
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There's plenty of examples of software doing this right and displaying each language in the selector in that language, it's hard to say why they've localised it here. Most likely they just didn't consider how the user interacts with that element and localised it the same way they translate everything else, but that could be down to anyone from the developer habitually running everything through localisation to company policy where they couldn't get an exception for that element.
You'd have to ask support for whatever software you're using for more detail, chances are you won't get anything useful back but if you're lucky they might fix it.
This is Fairphone's website. I'm not that anal about it, doesn't bother me too much, but I did see it on several websites, and I'm just confused...
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this is a region switcher, rather than a language switcher (the website may of course be conflating the two, though)
Be that as it may, I honestly don't see what difference that would make in regards to OP's point... While it is spmewhat rather ironic, their argument over choice of word(s) in this particular situation is - imo, anyway- not one of semantics, but more of localization.
Either way, whether this is a language selector or region switcher (or any variation on such a theme for that matter), I believe the point OP was - correctly, if you ask me - making is: Whenever a UX/UI element is needed to prompt for proper display language, each language should be displayed however it appears in its native tongue as opposed to how it appears in whatever language is currently selected.
As an added bonus, this also solves the problem of a user inadvertently changing the language (or forgetting to lock their workstation when leaving briefly and returning to find it changed to "help them remember to lock their station when not in active use" allegedly... not that that's happened to anyone I know or anything) and being unable to change it back due to not knowing how to spell "English" in Japanese, for example.
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It would be way more user-friendly to use the language in the HTTP headers. As a web developer the fact that websites are too stupid to do this really grinds my gears. This is just as bad as assuming the language/region from the geolocation of the IP address.
C’mon guys…
Yes, but it doesn't solve the problem. Even when a website does that, they might still have a switcher to let you override.
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I'm not saying it should include English, I was just using it for clarification. I think each language / country should be in the native language.
I only realized the list is a region selector after it was pointed out to me. Maybe this proves my point, I didn't know what the button I pressed was for
Having the region/country name in the website language does make sense. Language names however...Flags do help, but there are none in this example (mobile or desktop version). Sometimes flags can be confused too (Romania, Moldova, Chad).
I don't have a solution, and I'm not the usual ranter, I mostly post in the cooking community
Yeeeah, I don't know, it's an interesting UX question. For language selection, sure. For country? There are plenty of reasons why you may need to select a country name and not be clear on the native spelling of its name. Plus how do you end up in a country selector list in a language you don't understand?
I'll say that flagging the language selector for international users is even harder than the list itself. If you don't have an icon for it in particular. You can make the name cycle, but depending on where it's at it can be distracting or impractical. Accidentally changing the language to Hungarian (which may as well be an alien language, for how unrecognizeable its roots are if you don't speak it) was one of the few times I ended up having to delete a config file just to be able to use a piece of software again because I just could not find the lanuage selector after that.
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This is Fairphone's website. I'm not that anal about it, doesn't bother me too much, but I did see it on several websites, and I'm just confused...
Since Fairphone is Dutch it kinda makes sense they'd make this mistake. I suppose if you'd e-mail them about it they'd be open to making the change. They're probably not even aware of it.
It gets more difficult if even the script is different. I once installed some Chinese app that would put the language picker in Mandarin and their symbols. I really didn't know how to change it to anything I could understand so I'd go by all of them one by one until I found a language I understood.
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This always annoys me. I land on a site that's in a language I don't understand (say, Dutch), and I want to switch to something else. I open the language selector and... it's all in Dutch too. So instead of Germany/Deutchland, Romania/România, Great Britain, etc, I get Duitsland and Roemenië and Groot-Brittannië...
How does that make any sense? If I don't speak the language, how am I supposed to know what Roemenië even is? In some situations, it could be easier to figure it out, but in some, not so much. "German" in Polish is "Niemiecki"...
Wouldn't it be way more user-friendly to show the names in their native language, like Deutsch, Română, English, Polski, etc?
Is there a reason this is still a thing, or is it just bad UX that nobody bothers to fix?
Because they didn't think it through.
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It’s like all the developers in the field got handed access to some IP dataset and they’re just looking for reasons to use it. Screw the users I guess?
The customer gets what the customer wants.
I've tried countless times to convince them to just use the browser locale, but most of them somehow keep insisting on using geolocation...
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This always annoys me. I land on a site that's in a language I don't understand (say, Dutch), and I want to switch to something else. I open the language selector and... it's all in Dutch too. So instead of Germany/Deutchland, Romania/România, Great Britain, etc, I get Duitsland and Roemenië and Groot-Brittannië...
How does that make any sense? If I don't speak the language, how am I supposed to know what Roemenië even is? In some situations, it could be easier to figure it out, but in some, not so much. "German" in Polish is "Niemiecki"...
Wouldn't it be way more user-friendly to show the names in their native language, like Deutsch, Română, English, Polski, etc?
Is there a reason this is still a thing, or is it just bad UX that nobody bothers to fix?
Just bad UX design. Typically this should include flags or the language's name in the language if they really did a good job.
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Just bad UX design. Typically this should include flags or the language's name in the language if they really did a good job.
Flags don't make sense.
Otherwise this is completely valid:( ) German
( ) Italian
( ) Japanese -
It would be way more user-friendly to use the language in the HTTP headers. As a web developer the fact that websites are too stupid to do this really grinds my gears. This is just as bad as assuming the language/region from the geolocation of the IP address.
C’mon guys…
Accept Language headers are sadly an easy browser fingerprint. I therefor have it set to English even though that's not my native language.
There's also the case where you might have misclicked when changing your language, so your argument isn't really a complete solution. It just helps but doesn't fix the main problem.
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Just bad UX design. Typically this should include flags or the language's name in the language if they really did a good job.
Flags don't represent languages and therefore shouldn't be used to represent languages.
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It would be way more user-friendly to use the language in the HTTP headers. As a web developer the fact that websites are too stupid to do this really grinds my gears. This is just as bad as assuming the language/region from the geolocation of the IP address.
C’mon guys…
My Pixel started giving me distances in miles once because I had the system language to English. I needed to change it to English (German) to show me meters. I don't know if they reverted that but at this point I am too afraid to change it.
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Yes, but it doesn't solve the problem. Even when a website does that, they might still have a switcher to let you override.
We do both.
A) use the language set by the user in their os/browser
B) switcher shows the language name in that languageDone, easy, etc. IMO the hard part are great translations and designs that work in languages where every word is a novel. And yet, here we are.
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My Pixel started giving me distances in miles once because I had the system language to English. I needed to change it to English (German) to show me meters. I don't know if they reverted that but at this point I am too afraid to change it.
That's just how locales work. When you set the language, you also get the associated date/time representation, unit system, etc
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Be that as it may, I honestly don't see what difference that would make in regards to OP's point... While it is spmewhat rather ironic, their argument over choice of word(s) in this particular situation is - imo, anyway- not one of semantics, but more of localization.
Either way, whether this is a language selector or region switcher (or any variation on such a theme for that matter), I believe the point OP was - correctly, if you ask me - making is: Whenever a UX/UI element is needed to prompt for proper display language, each language should be displayed however it appears in its native tongue as opposed to how it appears in whatever language is currently selected.
As an added bonus, this also solves the problem of a user inadvertently changing the language (or forgetting to lock their workstation when leaving briefly and returning to find it changed to "help them remember to lock their station when not in active use" allegedly... not that that's happened to anyone I know or anything) and being unable to change it back due to not knowing how to spell "English" in Japanese, for example.
Be that as it may, I honestly don’t see what difference that would make in regards to OP’s point…
OP said that it's from the Fairphone website. The website has separate settings for language and region, language is shown in English and in the language itself, i.e. "Dutch / Nederlands", region is shown in the current language. So the website is actually doing what OP wants.
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This always annoys me. I land on a site that's in a language I don't understand (say, Dutch), and I want to switch to something else. I open the language selector and... it's all in Dutch too. So instead of Germany/Deutchland, Romania/România, Great Britain, etc, I get Duitsland and Roemenië and Groot-Brittannië...
How does that make any sense? If I don't speak the language, how am I supposed to know what Roemenië even is? In some situations, it could be easier to figure it out, but in some, not so much. "German" in Polish is "Niemiecki"...
Wouldn't it be way more user-friendly to show the names in their native language, like Deutsch, Română, English, Polski, etc?
Is there a reason this is still a thing, or is it just bad UX that nobody bothers to fix?
I've seen language switchers with translated language names that were sorted by the English name. So "Deutsch" was sorted under G.
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This always annoys me. I land on a site that's in a language I don't understand (say, Dutch), and I want to switch to something else. I open the language selector and... it's all in Dutch too. So instead of Germany/Deutchland, Romania/România, Great Britain, etc, I get Duitsland and Roemenië and Groot-Brittannië...
How does that make any sense? If I don't speak the language, how am I supposed to know what Roemenië even is? In some situations, it could be easier to figure it out, but in some, not so much. "German" in Polish is "Niemiecki"...
Wouldn't it be way more user-friendly to show the names in their native language, like Deutsch, Română, English, Polski, etc?
Is there a reason this is still a thing, or is it just bad UX that nobody bothers to fix?
Perfectly comprehensible if you speak english, look:
