A client wants to update their simple website (6 pages in total). They currently handle 3 languages (English, Spanish, and Italian) with each language using its own directory structure, for example:
From a design standpoint, is that the “in” thing to do these days? I was thinking it would be interesting to consolidate those 18 pages into 6 by having all of the languages on a single page. The languages would be in columnar format, so Spanish text would always in the first column, English the second, and so on. From a UI perspective, this would be identical on all of the pages for consistency.
There’s not a lot of text on any of the pages, but I am concerned how the column thing would work on mobile devices.
Am I way off on my idea, or should I just keep the existing page structure?
Many thanks for the info. I see your point, I was just trying to make things easier (on me). I’m not sure how to implement your JSON suggestion, but I’ll read up and figure out how that’s done.
The best way to create a multi-language website is to translate the pages and serve those pages depending on the origin of the user coming to your website.
So the structure you have adopted: one folder per language is good. Don’t change it.
@awagoner One more thing I forgot to mention above :
You may want to look deeper into what type of UX/UI people are looking for in different markets.
A small example:
Chinese love to have loads of information on the front page and do not like to dig too deep into the website.
They also like to have quick access to the product owner/support service for instance.
While on the other hand, in the US, and France I think, people are more inclined to leaner, simpler designes.
So at least for your key landing pages I would recommend creating different designs
Examples:
This is "western style, simple website"
I’m not a profi but from all info that I’ve read the best solution is to use different domains for different countries. That way your using that country’s top domain and can easily work with language-specific SEO. That solution is the hardest to maintain. Second, best could be using subdomains like en.website.com, also hard to maintain though. Depending on the site and if you use Webflow you could use folders, also a little hard to maintain if you have to make design changes but you have easy access to every page and work with language-specific SEO. Easiest to maintain is to use something like Bablic or Localize. I can find a bit more info here. It’s article with tips and tricks about how to make a multilingual website
If you are using any opensource content management system like WordPress, Joomla or Drupal, it is super easy for even a layman to create a multi-lingual website.
I have created a video tutorial to help anyone who wants to create a multi-language website in Joomla.