Dylan's thing

Internationalisation and tagging

Sat, 17 May 2008 22:16:00 +1000

At last night’s Web Standards Group meetup Richard Ishida, the Internationalisation Activity Lead for the W3C presented some guidelines and tips for designing international web–pages. Richard’s talk was followed by a thought provoking presentation on “How to make the most out of eGovernment” by José Manuel Alonso, the eGovernment Lead at the W3C.

Richard’s talk triggered a few thoughts inside me regarding i18n and tagging.

According to Information Architecture for the Word Wide Web, “Free tagging, also known as collaborative categorization, mob indexing, and ethno–classification, is a simple yet powerful tool. Users tag objects with one or more keywords. the tags are public and serve as pivots for social navigation”. Content is tagged collaboratively. Whereas classification is the process of describing things according to common characteristics, my view on ethno–classification is that the descriptions are related to one’s own culture. There isn’t always a link between culture and language, but it’s often present.

In a situation where tags are created automatically (via a service Reuters’ Open Calais perhaps) tag translation can be kept from being a problem. But in situations, like in Flickr, where people from different cultures and speaking different languages use an international site and can apply tags to common content the issues may not be trivial. In these circumstances is it appropriate to translate tags? I asked Richard this after the presentation, his opinion was that tags shouldn’t be translated. Why wouldn’t tags be translated?

Translations of small, descriptive words may have undesirable results. A translated tag may go from being 6 to 20 characters long, or a certain language’s translation won’t be available due to a lack of context around the word. Tags could be language specific, and this may be related to the culture from which the language came from. Tags may be misspelled. Some tags are proper nouns and many are slang. Some of the issues just mentioned are also completely relevant to localising user interfaces.

Could you attempt to work out what language tags are written in and then translate tags to the current user’s preferences or to the site’s default? Or to hide tags written in languages other than the current language preference? The imagined benefits from translating tags are outweighed by details and trivial issues. Flickr seems to have decided not to translate tags (or comments, titles and so on) and that seems to be a good decision.

Give me your em dashes and I'll cross your tees

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:22:53 +1000

So once again I find myself intensely irritated by a growing wave of practice that is touted as correct when its correctness is entirely arbitrary. I’m talking about the finer points of typography.

On the Sitepoint blogs James Edwards has written a post addressing his lack of patience with the “finer points of typography” and their enthusiasts. His reaction to principles that many aren’t aware of, may decide not to care about or are border–line religious in regard to is understandable. The points brought up regarding accessibility issues are valid, although it seems aside from Window–Eyes, most of the commonly used characters are addressed appropriately.

The blog post raises a couple of issues: the possible conflict between design and typographic principles and website accessibility best practices, and a point regarding the degree of care one puts into their work.

In a perfect world we have the time, patience, knowledge and resources to address any concern regarding the quality of our product. But the world isn’t perfect. If our resources aren’t sufficient to warrant the care that a fine piece of work requires, then let the problems be. But, if we have the means to address all the points we are aware of, then why not?

To correct grammatical mistakes in order to ensure clarity and understanding is one thing, but to correct them simply in order to adhere to an arbitrary set of rules is just anal.

James’s point that not adhering to these fiddly conventions doesn’t hinder understanding is often completely true. Although the subtle details which convey small (and possibly subconscious) understandings to the audience, such as “the finer points of typography”, can (and probably should) have a role to play. These conventions are old and have not arrive here from some far–off place — they have grown with our interest in/love for/need for literature.

Corporate weeing

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:56:00 +1000

“Corporate weeing; it’s like pissing in your pocket — it might make you feel warm, but it’s not doing you any good”.

According to my Grandfather, John Fogarty, when an organisation presents/markets itself it’s important for them to take a step back and look at themselves from the client’s point–of–view. What does the client want? What will they get?

An outline of the who, what, when, where and why from the perspectives of both the client and the business is a valuable step in learning more about your situation.

Sunday evening

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 22:40:00 +1000

It’s nearly time for bed but I want to cross something off my to–do list. So, I’m planning a revamp of my micro–site dylanfm.com.

I played basketball tonight. I’m tired of missing easy shots, some of which are ridiculously easy, but I don’t think I did too bad…

I came across an article from early last century about getting things done: How to Get Things Done. Oh how people love to blog about getting things done. Although, this wasn’t written for a blog. It’s written in a great way, I like this bloke’s approach.

I just ordered Bulletproof AJAX after finally finishing Jeremy Keith’s DOM Scripting book last night. Let’s hope it’s as great as its predecessor! In the mean time, I’m reading Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, which is following another great book I read recently — Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug. Enough about my reading, time to wrap things up and drift off to sleep I think.

Frank Gehry

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:46:06 +1100

Great stuff. I remember seeing his movie with my Grandfather a year or so ago, “Sketches of Frank Gehry”. I love the way he develops his ideas — paper, cardboard — all of which allow speed and clarity. Materials whose natural responses to your requests may inspire you and see other opportunities…

Anyway, here’s a video from 1990 of Frank Gehry presenting at TED.

Flickr upgrade

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:03:01 +1100

How exciting. I’ve upgraded my Flickr account. I’d reached their 200 photo limit for free–users and seeing as I enjoy the service I may as well upgrade.

Now I must lose myself in the collections and what–not.

CSS 3's multiple background images

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:33:17 +1100

Far out, I can’t wait for CSS3’s multiple background images to be supported across the browsers out there.

This year so far

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 22:43:21 +1100

I have finished my course. I passed and have achieved an Advanced Diploma of Fine Art. My studio space is now gone. For the past four years I had held two parts of my life separately. Living on the central coast, an hour or so from Sydney (where I studied) allowed me to work and create art in separate spaces. I had two worlds that seemed to work quite well.

Now things have changed. I no longer have this. I feel pressure to make use of what I have learned and to have an outlet for creative energy. Surfing is always there, and I hope it always will be. Art is different. I love being caught inside a session of painting. The relationship with a painting as it evolves, and then once it has been completed, the memories that float back as you glimpse the work hanging somewhere.

I don’t have a studio now. I don’t have a place where I feel relaxed to paint. I need to find one. I live in a rented flat without much space, I’m sure I can find somewhere. I don’t need a space to draw anyway, but I just don’t find the time to sit down and sketch.

Enough whinging for now.

The Crystal Goblet

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 10:53:00 +1100

I stumbled across this text by Beatrice Warde titled “The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible” yesterday.

“Calligraphy can almost be considered a fine art nowadays, because its primary economic and educational purpose has been taken away; but printing in English will not qualify as an art until the present English language no longer conveys ideas to future generations, and until printing itself hands its usefulness to some yet unimagined successor.”

These words have substance. Once something is no longer necessary; once its use is superseded; it can be seen in a different light. It is then that more individuals will see this as something in its own right. This also refers to the benefit of an outsider’s perspective on something. An observer’s point–of–view compared to an active participant’s.

Mad storm

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:24:00 +1100

A great storm just passed over. It took me by surprise and shot eastward out to sea. There was a hectic lightning strike very close by. If I had been wearing socks, I would’ve jumped out of them due to the bang that shortly followed.

Here are a few photos: