Front end developer specialising in JavaScript and React. Experienced in all aspects of modern front end development. Passionate about making accessible, secure and performant software.
I agree that setting the language based on browser preferences is better than based on location. If you think about it from the user's point of view and the example you described, it makes perfect sense.
A step better than that is to have the language be part of the URL + provide a language option on your website. This is what Google recommends in Managing multi-regional sites. E.g. example.com/en/, or example.com/fr/. Again this makes sense from the user's point of view. If a friend is using your computer and they want to change language, they don't have to mess with browser settings.
Front end developer specialising in JavaScript and React. Experienced in all aspects of modern front end development. Passionate about making accessible, secure and performant software.
Front end developer specialising in JavaScript and React. Experienced in all aspects of modern front end development. Passionate about making accessible, secure and performant software.
It's especially bad here in Switzerland, since the country has 4 official languages, some sites will force either French or German onto you without letting you switch to the other. Newsflash for those devs: Just because Switzerland has 4 languages doesn't mean every citizen can speak all four of them fluently. Especially us English-speaking immigrants who can't speak any of them :P
Of course it isn't just language. Ubisoft forces currency based on your location (Steam doesn't). Ikea even forces you to make a different account per locale - I get why this might be the easiest solution for the devs, but I'm sure with a bit of effort this doesn't need to be the case.
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I agree that setting the language based on browser preferences is better than based on location. If you think about it from the user's point of view and the example you described, it makes perfect sense.
A step better than that is to have the language be part of the URL + provide a language option on your website. This is what Google recommends in Managing multi-regional sites. E.g. example.com/en/, or example.com/fr/. Again this makes sense from the user's point of view. If a friend is using your computer and they want to change language, they don't have to mess with browser settings.
Of course, this should always be an option. But what gets on my nerves is deciding defaults based on location.
Agreed.
Even worse is when you manually fix the language in the URL, but the site thinks it knows better and just changes it back based on your location.
OMG, I actually laughed when I read your comment... That's quite bad...
It's especially bad here in Switzerland, since the country has 4 official languages, some sites will force either French or German onto you without letting you switch to the other. Newsflash for those devs: Just because Switzerland has 4 languages doesn't mean every citizen can speak all four of them fluently. Especially us English-speaking immigrants who can't speak any of them :P
Of course it isn't just language. Ubisoft forces currency based on your location (Steam doesn't). Ikea even forces you to make a different account per locale - I get why this might be the easiest solution for the devs, but I'm sure with a bit of effort this doesn't need to be the case.