Blog - American Web usability
American Web usability
Being quite concerned about Web usability, I find it a bit amusing to get a bad review part of the introduction of an article about International Web usability.
"Many websites fail to realize that a site is not usable if it is merely translated into another language, without any thought given to the user experience. An example of these types of errors are seen in the translated Tokyo Recohan Website. In this site, the item price is displayed in Japanese yen rather the dollar and the dates are displayed differently than a US audience is accustomed to." (emphasis added)
Now at first these may sure sound like valid points, except for the assumption that the Web site is [merely?] translated.
However, I scratch my head wondering how "international" is a Web site with US dates, a confusing format used pretty much only in the US (I use the format recommended for the Web, ISO 8601, which happens to be same as Japan's). This comment sure sounds very US-centric to me.
As for prices in Japanese yen, sure it may be a much less popular currency than the US dollar, but the user is buying Japanese goods from Japan, and maybe comparing with other Japanese sites with prices in Japanese yen. An order's USD total is also one click away in the shopping cart (other conversions a second click away). Giving the user the choice would surely be better, but USD only... certainly not.
I'm of course not saying that the site has perfect usability — it has many flaws (even breaking some of Web usability guru Jakob Nielsen's "Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design") — but I feel like things have been taken out of context in this review and put into an "International = American" situation.
This isn't the case of the whole article though, which does state many good points about true international issues on the Web. It must however be taken with a grain of salt.
I do find it funny that they chose this site rather than a larger one (I could name many) that's truly only merely translated and presents the same usability flaws if not more.
Posted on December 22, 2004 at 10:45 | Tweet
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I completely agree with you, about the dating system. How very US-centric. I think the US way of displaying dates is silly, and I've never used it.
Posted by Jean on December 22, 2004 at 12:29
Well if anyone reads that and follows the link you have a perfect soapbox to politely that American's shouldn't be making assumptions that things ought to be an American idea of internationalism or it's wrong. You could temporarily add a little thanks for visiting educational box for readers of splitpeadesign's term paper.
Posted by ndkent on December 22, 2004 at 12:31
Thanks for the support. :)
Very good idea Nick! I'll definitely be doing that!
Posted by Patrick on December 22, 2004 at 12:37
ugh. i can't believe how silly this is. not everything should be in u.s. currency, and it's hardly rocket science to convert currency.
the difference in dates can be confusing(i think taiwan follows the u.s. system, except they sometimes have a different system for years) but just because you aren't accustomed to something doesn't mean it's wrong or needs to be changed.
Posted by william on December 22, 2004 at 16:04
I have always found Tokyo Recohan so clear and simple to use from the very first time !! What are these people on ????
Posted by Mauro on December 22, 2004 at 21:58
Hi Folks,
first off all I love to shop japanese records in Yen. This is much more authentic and this is the little exotic topping on a great web site. I don't care what Nielsen may think.
On the other hand - there is some econimical reason to follow US standards. If it is as easy as eating whoppers US shoppers can buy. All others are smart enough to handle Yen and "exotic" date formats. Or is it the US media who thinks US fellowers are not smart enough to do this? They ones I met did not have any problems with non US standards...
And: Congratulation that your web site was choosen as an example! This means somebody takes you really as serious as e.g. Amazon, the web site is visble enough to be found by somebody not digging to deep for facts(else he would have found out that the site is not translated) and you get perhaps some more customers.
/Markus
Posted by Markus on December 22, 2004 at 22:46
As long as you don't start to convert prices to euro's : you'll find out how cheap I buy my cd's these days and charge me extra ;-)
Congratulations with the free publicity!
Posted by Erik on December 22, 2004 at 23:02
Yes Erik,
Euro would be definitly the wrong choice ;-) In the moment the conversion rate makes shopping at TR a cheap experience.
Hope Patrick does not read this and raises the prices ;-)
/Markus
Posted by Markus on December 23, 2004 at 00:51
I find it interesting that the writer didn't realize that his/her comment
"..than a US audience is accustomed to"
totally undermined the whole point of the article about "International" Usability.
Posted by Roy on December 23, 2004 at 12:42
Thanks again for all the comments! I didn't expect this to be such a hot topic. :)
Markus, Erik,... whoa, I gotta go triple my prices now!
Just kidding. :) Enjoy it while the yen is on your side!
Roy, indeed the paragraph in question seems like a big contradiction to the article's point..!
Nice blog, I'll keep an eye on it!
Posted by Patrick on December 23, 2004 at 18:16
Actually hardly any small businesses or individuals are ever actually going to get the exchange rates institutions trade at if one is in business and is actually exchanging currency. So what exactly is that local currency value actually going to represent, there's going to be some kind of fee paid by someone somewhere unless you have accounts in the U.S.. I wonder if those "International' web standards pundits offer stuff like meeting institutional exchange rates or currency futures to level off rate spikes like corporate exporters use. Because simply put, you are going to have to pad foreign currency values a lot and the customer might very well save some money any time you aren't losing money by lowballing what you think it costs to exchange currency.
Posted by ndkent on December 24, 2004 at 15:31
Right on the money!
Posted by Patrick on December 24, 2004 at 15:51
It took a while, but I finally took the time to add an educational box per Nick's idea. :)
Posted by Patrick on December 31, 2004 at 13:13