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Languages: Choice of language for visitors
When a visitor enters the website, he/she must make be able to make a choice between the language versions available on the site. A number of guidelines are given below for providing links on the page to language versions for the website.
The visitor should have the option of choosing between languages on every page of the site.
Guideline R-pd.15.1
The visitor will not always arrive on the site by way of the home page. Result pages from search engines and links in the visitor's Favourites (bookmarks) or browser history mean that visitors can enter of the site on any page.
Links for language choice should have a clear and consistent place in the navigation of the site.
Guideline R-pd.15.2
Visitors must not have to search for links specifying language choice. The visitor who has decided that he/she needs a different language, wants to be able to immediately find a link to his or her chosen language. Place such links close to the main navigation. The main navigation is usually already clearly present and so will associated links be.
Use fully written-out (textual) links to the language versions.
Guideline R-pd.15.3
Abbreviations for the languages, like NL, EN, DE or ES will be unknown to many visitors.
Write links to language versions in their corresponding languages.
Guideline R-pd.15.4
So instead of links like Dutch, French and German, use Nederlands, Français and Deutsch.. This makes them understandable for visitors who have a preference for one of these languages variants.
Do not use associations with nationalities for language choice.
Guideline R-pd.15.5
Associations like flag images or texts such as 'the Netherlands', 'Great Britain' or 'Germany' cause confusion about the geographical orientation of the website. Some people may even find them insulting.
If a website provides two different target groups, one Dutch and one international, with different information, it is better to make this distinction clear, referring to nationality rather than language. Instead of Nederlands and English, links could, for instance, be named ‘Nederlandse bezoekers’ (Dutch visitors) and ‘international visitors’ or ‘foreign visitors’.
