Good list;
I have just one more point for Paul to consider. Sales taxes. Paul,
you say you are a maker of a commerce site. Consider the ability
to put two tax codes and percentages. In many provices in
Canada, for example, there is a federal sales tax (GST) and
provincial sales tax (PST). That is likely to be true for many
countries with a federal structure.
dn.
On 31 Mar 02, at 1:53, Mike Kear wrote:
I know you're thinking about technical things, but there are some common
errors you can easily make, and a huge number of American companies make
them
(1) Not all countries have zip codes, and only a few have 5 character
numeric codes. So don't REQUIRE a 5 numeral zip code.
(2) Few countries use two characters to name their states/provinces, and
some don't have any such divisions at all. So don't make your state field
a drop down list consisting of only the 50 US 2character state
abbreviations.
(3). American 1-800 numbers don't work outside the USA. So provide a
regular phone number if you're going to put a 1-800 number.
(4) Only North America has phone numbers in the format (999) 999-. The
rest of the world has a dazzling array of formats, and not everyone has
area codes. So don't use that stupid feature in CF to format a field as a
phone number field. You're locking non-Canadian and non-US customers out of
that field. Not everyone has 7 character phone numbers. Some have 5, some
have 10, some have numbers in between.
(5) Don't use seasons to describe time. It's common for American
companies to talk about something being released next spring for example.
But not all countries have 4 seasons. In the tropics they only have two
seasons (Hong Kong, South East Asia, North of Australia, Central America
for example). And anyway when we see this expression here in Australia,
we often think which 'spring' is it referring to - is it ours or theirs?
Summer in these parts is December-March. And similarly don't use terms
like 1QR or Quarter 2. The financial year in Australia begins on 1 July.
IN New Zealand it beings 1. April. Different times in other countries. So
does the term beginning of 2Qtr mean April, (i.e. beginning of the second
calendar quarter) or September (beginning of second financial quarter in
Australia) or June (beginning of second financial quarter in New Zealand)
etc etc around the world. Don't be lazy, use the month names and everyone
will know what you mean.
(6) Despite the prevalence of the US Dollar, not everyone wants to deal in
that currency, and anyway, it can be very expensive to convert local
currency to US. (It costs AUD$15 to bank a US cheque in a Australian bank
account for example ) So provide for some way for your customers to pay
you in local currency. Or make it easy for them to convert.
(7) Remember that when you send your data across the Atlantic, or the
Pacific Oceans it might well travel 70,000 km before it arrives at the
user's browser. (35,000 up to a satellite and 35,000 down again) So don't
put huge files in your site - big graphics etc - just because it runs fast
in your home town, doesn't mean it's going to run fast half a world away.
Will your prospective customers in Europe and Asia wait to download that
fancy flash page that you love but which does nothing at all for the
customer?
(8) I once tried to download some software from a major international
company (who will remain nameless but recently announced a merger with
Compaq) where the registration form had a compulsory field that required a
social security number for pete's sake. The product was a printer driver -
not a US specific piece of software, but for general release around the
world. The moron who designed that page hadn't thought for a moment that
there might just be people in the world who didn't have US social security
numbers. (Like for example ALL of the non-US residents!!) I had to make
up a social security number, and tinker around with numbers until I invented
one the form liked. I also had to invent an address because it had a 5
character compulsory zip code so I just took an address from a company's ad
in a magazine.
And this is without even touching the idea of language choices. It's common
in Europe and Asia for sites to be built in several languages and you choose
on the home page which language you want to see. This is costly and
duplicates effort to translate your site into other languages, but how many
other customers will you get if you do the translation?
These are just some random thoughts. I know you were thinking about CF's
Locale setting and similar matters, but perhaps these more general thoughts
might help you too.
Cheers,
Mike Kear
Windsor, NSW, Australia
AFP WebWorks
-Original Message-
From: Paul Giesenhagen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, March 30, 2002 1:04 AM
To: CF-Talk
Subject: Internationalization
We are makers of SiteDirector a commerce application and are getting ready
to
