Group 2. Aspects related to localisation

This category aims at supporting the adaptation of different elements of the web page to users in the target locale (Andreu-Vall and Marcos, 2012a, p. 257). Some elements can be analysed as seen for Group 1, while others cannot be assessed looking at the source code. In this case, I had to check the presence of certain features online.

2.1 Date format: Different cultures around the world have different ways to write and read the date.

For example, 10/03/2018 is read in Italian using the cardinal number ten (not the ordinal like in English), saying the name of the month, and using the cardinal number 2018. In Russian, the same date is read as follows: ordinal numeral for the day of the month in neuter nominative, month in genitive, ordinal nu-meral for the year in masculine genitive, and год (year) in genitive. Reading numbers certainly depends on language constraints,¹³ but the world does not agree not even in the way dates are written with num-bers. For example, most European countries use the format day/month/year, China and Japan prefer the format year/month/day, while the format month/day/year is unique to the United States (W3C, 2007a). Date formats can become ambiguous in cases like 01/03 – imagine you want to book a flight for 1 March, and the system does a reservation for 3January (Andreu-Vall and Marcos, 2012, p. 257).

To avoid ambiguities, “ISO 8601 describes an internationally accepted way to represent dates and times using numbers” (ISO, 2012):

13 Ordinals in English are created adding suffix –th to the number, while in Italian, as in Russian, ordinal numbers are adjec-tives, and as such they have a gender. Some languages like Russian also use cases to express what other languages express by using prepositions. Grammatical rules obviously affect the way dates are read.

47 ISO 8601 specifies a format of YYYY-MM-DD. 2003-04-02 is clearer than 03/04/02. (Some prefer to modify ISO 8601 by using an abbreviation for the month to make it more clear, for example 2003-Apr-02, but then it is no longer locale neutral.) (W3C, 2007a).

The advantages of using ISO 8601 is that it is computer friendly and unambiguous. However, people are more comfortable with their “natural” date formats (W3C, 2007a).

Another option proposed by W3C is to make the month and year obvious (Ibid.), by using a name for the month (abbreviated or not) and use 4 digits for all Gregorian year numbers (e.g. 2 April 2003; 2 Apr 2003). This method is completely unambiguous and people friendly, but it is less computer friendly, and it takes more space (Ibid.):

In some locales even the abbreviation for a month name may be longer than three characters. (In French the first three letters of June and July are the same, juin and juillet). Allowing extra space for this exacerbates the space problem (Ibid.).

For such reasons, ISO 8601 remains the most computer friendly and transparent method, as it recurs to numerical digits and avoid cross-cultural ambiguities.

For this section, one is supposed to check if date formats are either respecting ISO 8601 or adapted according to target language rules.

I expect date formats to comply with ISO 8601 date format. “Dates should be formatted by the following format: YYYY-MM-DD”, as reported in the Annex to the supplementing Regulation (EU) No 600/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council on markets in financial instruments with regard to regu-latory technical standards (European Commission, 2016a). This is an example of how standardisation ensures transparency.

However, since I do not want to privilege standardisation over customisation, I also consider appropriate date formats that refer to local conventions. The importance of culturally customised web sites has al-ready been discussed. For such reason, customised date formats are also considered appropriate. Further, Andreu-Vall and Marcos (2012, p. 257) as well agree to consider appropriate the most familiar form to users.

The languages considered in this analysis are Italian and English.

Italian: As web sites taken in consideration are localised from Italian into foreign languages (mostly English), I do not expect to find errors in date formats. Nonetheless, I here provide examples of how date should be written in Italian (Lesina, 1986; Petricola, 2011).

According to the Italian manual of style by Lesina (1986, p. 340), dates are expressed in the sequence day month year (3 novembre 1949), and they can be preceded by the day of the week (lunedì 3 novembre 1949). The names of days and months can be abbreviated (3 nov. 1949 or lun. 3 nov. 1949), though it is

48 preferable to avoid abbreviations. When dates are expressed in figures, numbers must be separated by hyphens (-) without space, as in 3-11-1949. The year should always be written out in full, since in shorten forms, such as 3-11-49, the saving is minimum. Lesina points out that some cultures may intend it as March 11^th 1949. However, the date format dd/mm/yyyy is the most familiar to Italian language. He also mentions ISO 8601, but he says it is unsuitable for domestic use (1949-11-03).¹⁴ The following table summarises all the possible ways to write the date both in letters and figures (Lesina, 1986, p. 340; Petri-cola, 2011). The example chosen is Monday, 5 October 2017:

Index Italian date formats Notes 1. 5 ottobre 2017

2. 5 ottobre ‘17 Abbreviation of the year should be avoided.

3. 5 ott. 2017

4. lunedì 5 ottobre 2017 5. lun. 5 ott. 2017 6. 5.10.2017 7. 5-10-2017

8. 5/10/2017

9. 5.10.17 Abbreviation of the year should be avoided.

10. 5-10-17 Abbreviation of the year should be avoided.

11. 5/10/17 Abbreviation of the year should be avoided.

12. 5.X.2017 Less frequent.

13. 5-X-2017 Less frequent.

14. 5/X/2017 Less frequent.

Table 4. Italian date formats.

According to previous considerations, to avoid ambiguities only elements number 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 are considered fully appropriate for the purposes of this study. As the non-compliance score for this category is 3, compliance score (0) is assigned only in case the date is presented as in the afore-mentioned cases.

English: For what concerns English, I make a distinction between British English and American English.

The main source for British English guidelines on date formats is Oxford University: “New Hart’s rules”

14 Months expressed in Roman numbers are not common, but it is still a possibility (XI = November) (Petricola, 2011). The 9 August could then be written as follows: 9.VIII.2010, 9-VIII-2010, 9/VIII/2010 (Petricola, 2011). Dots and slashes can be used instead of hyphens. In special events, the day as well can be written using Roman numbers (il IV Novembre) (Lesina, 1986, p. 340).

49 (Ritter, 2005), adapted from “The Oxford guide to style” by R. M. Ritter, and “University of Oxford Style Guide” online (University of Oxford, 2014). The main source for American English is “The MLA Style Manual” (Achtert and Gibaldi, 1985), published by The Modern Language Association of America.

When writing dates, figures are used for days and years. Using cardinal numbers is preferable to using ordinal numbers: e.g. 12 August 1960 (Achtert and Gibaldi, 1985, p. 83; Ritter, 2005, p. 189). The form 12^th August 1960 should be avoided, unless quoted verbatim: it is better not to use ordinal numbers (-st, -nd, -rd, -th) with dates, though they are read as such.

It is suggested to write just the number and month – and never precede the number with “the” (e.g. 13 April) (University of Oxford, 2014). “An incomplete reference may be given in ordinal form”, e.g. on the 18^th (Ritter, 2005, p. 189). Days of the week are added to emphasise or avoid confusion. When comma is used “a terminal second comma is required if the date is worked into a sentence” (Ibid.):

e.g. The Modern Superstitions conference is on Friday 14 April (University of Oxford, 2014).

On Tuesday, 2 November 1993, the day dawned frosty (Ritter, 2005, p. 189).

Comma is not used between month and year: e.g. in June 1831 (Ibid.)

When using letters, in British English, date format is shown in the order day/month/year, without inter-nal punctuation: 2 November 2003 (Ibid.). Whereas in American English, the preferred order is month/day/year: e.g. November 2, 2003 (Ibid.; Achtert and Gibaldi, 1985, p. 83): “Be consistent in writ-ing dates: use either ‘22 July 1986’ or July 22, 1986” but not both” (Achtert and Gibaldi, 1985, p. 83).

Names of days and months, both in British and American English, should be written in full. However, upper-case abbreviations can be used in notes or for space issues (Ritter, 2005, p. 179). When dates are expressed in all-figure forms, British English uses the format dd/mm/yyyy, using dots or slashes. The year can be given in full or shortened: e.g. 2.11.2003 or 2/11/03 (Ritter, 2005, p. 190). Whereas, in Amer-ican English the preferred format is mm/dd/yyyy separated by slashes rather than dots: e.g. 11/2/03 (Ritter, 2005, p. 179).

The ISO date format (yyyy-mm-dd) is separated by hyphens, and even if its popularity is increasing in technical and computer context, it remains unfamiliar to many (Ibid.). Therefore, texts intended for users who speak different varieties of English should spell out the name of the month or use the standard upper-case abbreviation to avoid ambiguity (Ritter, 2005, p. 410). The following table summarises all the possible ways to write the date both in letters and figures (Achtert and Gibaldi, 1985; Ritter, 2005; Uni-versity of Oxford, 2014). The example chosen is 10 April 2011:

50 Index British English dates American English dates Notes

1. 10 April 2011 10 April 2011

2. 10 Apr. 2011 10 Apr. 2011

3. April 10, 2011

4. Apr. 10, 2011

5. 10/4/2011 4/10/2011 Confusing

6. 10.4.2011

7. 10/4/11 4/10/11 Confusing

8. 10.4.11

Table 5. British and American date formats.

To avoid ambiguities only elements number 1, 2, 3 and 4 are considered fully appropriate for the purposes of this study, unless the locale is specified.

The non-compliance score for this category is 3 (major error).

2.2 Time format: Time formats as well vary according to the locale. ISO 8601 defines as well a stand-ardised way of presenting time: hh:mm:ss (Kuhn, 1999), where two-digit hour (hh), two-digit minute (mm), two-digit second (ss) and one or more digits for the decimal fraction of second(s) are used.

The complete format for time expression according to ISO 8601 is represented as follows: YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.sTZD (e.g. 1997-07-16T19:20:30.45+01:00), TZD represents the time zone designator (Z or +hh:mm or -hh:mm) (Wolf and Wicksteed, 1997). This standard “helps cut out the uncertainty and confusion when communicating internationally” (ISO, 2012). In fact, some cultures use the 12 hours format, while others prefer to use the 24 hours format (e.g. 5 PM, vs. 17:00):

The 24h time notation specified here has already been the de-facto standard all over the world in written language for decades. The only exception are a few English speaking countries, where still notations with hours between 1 and 12 and additions like “a.m.” and “p.m.” are in wide use. The common 24h international standard notation is widely used now even in England (e.g. at airports, cinemas, bus/train timetables, etc.).

Most other languages do not even have abbreviations like “a.m.” and “p.m.” and the 12h notation is certainly hardly ever used on Continental Europe to write or display a time. Even in the U.S., the military and com-puter programmers have been using the 24h notation for a long time (Kuhn, 1999).

For this section, one is supposed to check if date formats are adapted according to target language rules.

For what concerns Italian language, 24h time notation is considered appropriate. The choice of time format is a matter of editorial style. However, when there is no need to tell the exact time, 19:00 can be replaced by 19, and 06:42 by 6:42, in a less formal way (Lesina, 1986, p. 142). Hours are separated from

51 minutes by colons or dot. While the use of a comma is not considered appropriate (Ibid.). The table below shows several ways to indicate time in Italian. Examples are taken from the Italian manual of style by Lesina (1986, p. 142).

Informal ways Formal ways

19

Table 6. Italian time formats.

Even for English, different styles are more or less appropriate depending on the context. When time is expressed in letters, it is customary not to use hyphens, and use “o’clock” only when referring to exact hours (e.g. four o’clock; a quarter to four). When time is expressed in figures, it is customary to use the 12h time notation with a.m. (ante meridiem = before noon) and p.m. (post meridiem = after noon). For a round hour, the decimal point and zeros do not need to be specified (e.g. 4 p.m.). The twenty-four-hour clock is also considered appropriate, and avoids using a.m. and p.m. (e.g. 16.00). In British English, it is customary to use the dot as separator, while in Northern America the dot is replaced by a colon. The afore-mentioned rules are taken from Ritter (2005, p. 187). Examples are summarised in the following table:

British/American English British English American English A quarter to four.

Table 7. British and American time formats.

The non-compliance score for this category is 3 (major error).

2.3 Number format: As seen for previous categories, numbers used in time expressions are treated differently in different languages. It is important for the target user that number format matches with target language rules, so that the information displayed to them look familiar. For example, the number format for one thousand two hundred and thirty four point five in England is 1,234.5, while in Germany

52 is 1.234,5 (W3C, 2014c). At the same time, “if you are paying 1.003 Omani Rials for an item on a website”, you should be informed whether you are paying one rial or approximately one thousand rials (Ibid.).

Resolution 10 in the Text of Resolutions adopted by the 22nd General Conference on weights and measures “declares that the symbol for the decimal marker shall be either the point on the line or the comma on the line, [and] reaffirms that ‘numbers may be divided in groups of three in order to facilitate reading; neither dots nor commas are ever inserted in the spaces between groups’, as stated in Resolution 7 of the 9th CGPM, 1948” (22nd General Conference on Weights and Measures, 2003).

In this category, it must be checked whether number formats are used in accordance with target language rules.

In Italian, the comma is used as decimal separator (e.g. 0,2 or 630,25). In writing large numbers, Italian uses a space to separate thousands, millions, etc. and tends to group numbers in groups of three (e.g.

26 312 600). Space is the most unambiguous method to separate thousands, as some cultures use either the comma or the dot, creating confusion with decimal numbers (Lesina, 1986, pp. 131-132).

Both British and American English use a dot to separate decimal numbers (e.g. 12.66). While a comma is used to separate thousands, millions, etc, (e.g. 1,000,000,000 = 1 million). However, in technical and foreign-language work it is suggested to use a thin space (e.g. 14 785 652) (Ritter, 2005, pp. 182, 185).

When symbols of currencies are used, they precede the figures both in English and Italian (Lesina, 1986, p. 144; Ritter, 2005, p. 186).

The non-compliance score for this category is 3 (major error).

2.4 Contacts section: This category specifies that contacts section in the localised version of a web site must be adapted to target users. For example, telephone numbers must be included specifying the area code, and no other number can be included between the area code and the telephone number (Andreu-Vall and Marcos, 2012, p. 257). ¹⁵

The non-compliance score for this category is 3 (major error). However, as the focus of this heuristic evaluation is the homepage, this category is not considered, unless contact information is given in the home page

2.5 Content update in every localised version: One of the main purposes of a web site is to carry out information about a service, a product, an institution or a company. However, information is not always

15 Information about the area code, 2-digit and 3-digit ISO code are available on the web site CountryCode.org.

53 updated in every localised version. It may happen that the content is more frequently updated in a lan-guage, while other linguistic versions may not be so up to date. Ideally the content of a web site should be updated in all linguistic versions at the same time (Andreu-Vall and Marcos, 2012, p. 257).

For this category, I check if the content is updated in all linguistic versions. In this specific case, the compliance of this guideline is done by reading and comparing the content of the Italian and English web site. The non-compliance score for this category is 2 (medium error).

2.6 Access to language selection from any page: This usability guideline specifies that users should be able to change language in every web page while surfing a web site, without starting the navigation again from the homepage

Sometimes when users click on the language selector in a web page, they are redirected to the homepage, the only page where they are allowed to actually switch language. This forces them to interrupt their reading, losing time and getting off-track.

If language choice is supported by a site, I recommend providing a link to the choice on every single page since users often go directly to pages from search services or bookmarks without passing through the home page. Some sites put up a language choice page before the user can reach the home page, but I recommend against this if it is possible to determine a default language that will be used by a very large proportion of the users (the Louvre Museum in Paris is a good example: fair enough to start in French) (Nielsen, 1996b).

For this guideline, I should check if access to language selection is available from any page. Since this analysis focuses on the homepage, this guideline does not apply to my evaluation.

The non-compliance score for this category is 3 (major error).