i18n (internationalization)

Meetup's apps are meant to be used by everybody, no matter what language they speak or where they live. We strive to ship a product that to be adapted to various languages and regions.

Basic concepts

• Internationalization (i18n): The practice of building a product which supports localization, globalization, and translation.
• Localization (l10n): Adapting your product to a particular locale (country/language)
• Globalization: The process of becoming global product, which works everywhere and for everyone
• Translation: An important part of localization, but only the tip of the iceberg

Languages we support in 2017:

• English (United States) - Default
• French (France)
• German (Germany)
• Italian (Italy)
• Japanese (Japan)
• Portuguese (Brazil)
• Spanish (Spain)
• Spanish (Global)
• English (Australian)
• Dutch (Netherlands) - BETA
• Korean (Korea) - BETA
• Turkish (Turkey) - BETA
• Thai (Thailand) - BETA
• Polish (Poland) - BETA
• Russian (Russia) – BETA
• And more to come in the future!

Note: Don't assume language based on country or location. For example: in NYC alone 28% of households don't speak English as their primary language; Spanish is spoken in countries across the world, not just Spain; Canadians speak French and English

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Product considerations

Designing for translation

• When designing an interface, consider that English text can become much longer when translated to other languages.

• Avoid making components that read like sentences—other languages do not follow the same word order as English. It's best to design the component so that each piece of information is self-contained and can be understood no matter what order they appear in.

• Avoid making components that contain text a fixed-width. This prevents them from growing or shrinking to support translations of different lengths.

• Wrapping text in components is preferred to truncating the text. You may be cutting off important information in another language.

• Don't put text inside of a graphic, it can't be translated

For reference, here's a chart of text expansion rate from IBM's globalization guidelines:

Rethinking our NYC-based biases

Many of Meetup's employees live near Meetup HQ in NYC. However, most of our users to not. Here are some ways the rest of the world is different from New York:

• Cities are smaller
• There are no trains, more trains or faster trains
• People are more likely to be shy
• The American concept of “community” does not exist or is different
• The internet access is bad or better
• The devices are different
• The language is different
• People are richer or poorer
• People have money but no credit cards or have credit cards but no money
• Population is generally older or generally younger

Devices and internet access

In most parts of the US, we're lucky to have powerful computers and fast internet. However, this isn't the case globally.

Most people use cheaper devices offered that run Android or something else:

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Intercultural design considerations

Culture, language, and society affect how people think and communicate, which affects how people respond to design.

Be aware of

• Visual symbology
• Color meanings
• Perceptions of rudeness
• Hierarchy
• Gender roles
• History
• Politics
• Attitude towards institutions
• Business communication styles
• Religion

Connect and empathize

• Remember our novice status in different cultures
• Focus on what's the same, not what's different

Don't assume or judge

• Avoid positive and negative stereotypes about different cultures
• Don't take your values and knowledge as the default
• Be aware of the stereotypes other cultures have about us

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Sources and additional resources:

Intercultural Design, a talk by Smitha Prasadh Mozilla's Localization content best practices