The technical challenges related to multilingual Web sites are also significant. The process of designing, developing, and deploying a multilingual Web site can benefit from adopting some of the same sound software engineering principles used in other disciplines. One of the most important categories of technical considerations is structural, which can effect both user expectations and engineering decisions.

An Example: SIGPC
To illustrate some of the issues related to multilingual Web sites, consider my own experience in editing and publishing an online magazine in both English (Figure 2) and Chinese (Figure 1). SIGPC (www.sigpc.net) is an online publication that explores the impacts of personal computing on computer science, information technology, and software engineering. It is now in its fifth year of publication and is sent to several hundred readers. When a new article is released (usually once a month), a short summary of the text is sent by email to all SIGPC subscribers, as well as the URL for accessing the complete story and its corresponding audio version.

As with most of today's Web sites, the SIGPC site was English-only. I decided to migrate it to a bilingual Web site to attract a larger audience, and to better serve some of my newer subscribers many of whom are international graduate students. This meant adding Chinese language support, which includes text in Kanji and streaming audio in Mandarin.

Adding a second language to a Web site can be challenging.Adding an Asian language such as Chinese is particularly challenging. There are structural issues that must be addressed to incorporate the new dual-path through the site. There are also issues specific to languages such as Chinese. These include creating content (which editor to use?) and viewing content (which browser supports this?).

Perhaps most importantly, one must endeavor to create two versions of the same material that are true to one another. This challenge is present whenever there are two or more languages used to represent the same thing. Working closely with a Chinese-speaking associate, we have tried to make the translation as true as possible as to the Chinese philosophy of "xindaya": the translation should be accurate, understandable, and elegant. Given the technical nature of SIGPC, this is not always an easy goal to meet. From my preliminary investigations, I have found that creating and viewing content for a Chinese Web site is quite challenging. Keeping two versions of the same material synchronized with one another is a classic software maintenance problem. I also found that there are many small details (and software bugs) that to deal with to produce a widely accessible bilingual Web site.

Summary
There is no doubt that migrating from a Web site that is American-centric and single-language to one that is globally-oriented and multilingual is a challenge. Nevertheless, the benefits far outweigh the risks and work required. By providing localised content to a wider audience, your business can "go global" without ever leaving home.

By providing a localised content to a wider audience, your business can "go global" without ever leaving home.

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