Web Site Globalization Conference – Wednesday Afternoon Session

eMarketing, English, Web Site Globalization

1st day of a well organized IQPC conference on Web Site Globalization, Barcelona Sep 20, 2007

Dr. Simon Lande – CEO

MAGUS

“A Guide to Defining, Implementing ang Managing Global Web Standards”

Simon Lande talked about Web Standards

  • what they are and why they are important
  • how to define them
  • how to implement them
  • how to manage them

Defining standards:

  • Process standards, incl.
    • workflows
    • internal communicaion
  • Technical standards, incl.
  • company specific standards
    • brand, layout, visuals
    • information architecture, content
    • Metadata standards
  • general standards
    • usability, accessibility
    • privacy, copyrights
    • general web standards
    • SEO standards

Web standards need to be

  • well documented (200 -400 pages not unusual in big organizations)
  • practical, understandable, enforcable
  • based on global and local input

The Shell case

  • 200 websites, inconsistent designs and standards before 2006
  • now all based on Shell’s standards (3 main pillars: brand consistency, accessibility, usability)

Implementing web standards throughout the organization

  • should be done sequentially, with key objectives per phase
  • have a proof-of-concept site ready to show standards at work
  • be patient, long term goals

The Unilever case

On each Unuilever template page there are about 30 areas where standards were defined. With 250 pages per site and 200 sites that’s too many pages to review manually. “Magus ActiveStandards” tool used to check automatically. Checks many different Unilever web standards, like SEO, page titles, link formating, content length, outdated new articles. ActiveStandards integrates with Tridion, e.g. showing staging server URLs for pages that need correction.

Reinhard Schäler – Director, Localization Research Center (LRC)

UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK

“Embracing Cultural Diversity to Increase the Attractiveness and Entertainment Value of Your Web Site”

Globalization, internationalization and localization have diffrent meanings. Localization is about the cultural aspects of globalization. R. Schäler showed interesting examples of the more general aspects of cultural adaptation and how things can go wrong. He also observes more and more “reverse localization, which introduces foreign cultures into local content (ads) on purpose, e.g. to emphasize the lifestyle that a particular product stands for.

Fulvio Marfoni – Business Process Architect UnAssisted Support

HEWLETT PACKARD

“Revamping the Localization Process Strategy to Deliver a Timely, Consistent, Localized Consumer Web Support”

In the past HP pushed US content written for US consumer support down to local organizations. Today HP has implemented a unified content strategy, using (mainly) Documentum as the central CMS. All channels (web pages, manuals…) are published from the central content source.

Web sites are either fully or partially localized, some only have a local home page. All content that is not translated falls back to English automatically. Reusable content and translation management has resulted in significant cost savings and faster time to market.

The Content Silo Trap:

HP observed that if content is created by authors working in isolation, it is often re-created, sometimes multiple times, and often with changes at each iteration, resulting in increased costs and reduced quality.

Next: Thursday morning session