Pre-conference workshop

Global IA: organizing global websites

Peter Van Dijck

This workshop will teach you how to organize global websites that have multiple languages and locales. Social media sites, intranets, product sites, e-commerce sites will all be discussed.

We will talk about why categories are cultural (and when they’re not), how to develop a global information architecture strategy, how to choose your locales, how you can alphabetically organize content in languages that don’t have an alphabet, the different approaches to translating existing taxonomies, how to test your content and IA on an immigrant population, and much more.

This workshop is NOT about international usability: we won’t discuss which colors are considered offensive in Japan, nor why a state formfield doesn’t apply in Belgium. There is plenty of existing information on those topics.

The format of the workshop is a combination of teaching and discussion. Handouts will be provided.

This workshop is for you:

• If you have to roll out your website in 8 languages.
• If you have to figure out how to provide access to only partially translated content.
• If you have to translate a taxonomy that you consider untranslatable.
• If you’re not sure whether to localize for “Spanish”, or for “Latin America”.
• If you have to develop an information architecture for multiple locales.
• If you have to standardize the IA of your global intranet over all the local offices.
• If you work at a startup that wants to provide multiple languages.
• If you work at a large corporation that needs to clean up its current mess of worldwide websites.
• If your interested in the intersection of information architecture and anthropology.