788874 - Reviews not visible in Portuguese on homepage

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Marketplace Graveyard :: Consumer Pages, defect, P3)

Description

[Christopher Van Wiemeersch [:cvan]]

In Portuguese, "Free" is long and causes the star ratings to wrap to the next link.

Actual: http://f.cl.ly/items/0Q110i1C3j3T3o1j0i43/Screen%20shot%202012-09-05%20at%203.54.14%20PM.png
Expected: http://f.cl.ly/items/080W0o0F211c1z282s1w/Screen%20shot%202012-09-05%20at%203.54.57%20PM.png

Maria, thoughts when the translation of "Free" is too long?

Comment 1

[Maria Sandberg [:mushi]]

It makes me nervous to have a variable length string for this when we have so little room in the design. Other services keep the word "free" even when using other languages, but change the price and currency. 

There might be reasons against this that I'm not aware of, but I'd vote for using "free" for all languages so we can at least control this part of the experience.

Comment 2

[Christopher Van Wiemeersch [:cvan]]

(In reply to Maria Sandberg [:mushi] from comment #1)
> There might be reasons against this that I'm not aware of, but I'd vote for
> using "free" for all languages so we can at least control this part of the
> experience.

Can we do better than that? "Free" is English, and we're a multilingual site!

Comment 3

[Maria Sandberg [:mushi]]

(In reply to Chris Van Wiemeersch [:cvan] from comment #2)
> Can we do better than that? "Free" is English, and we're a multilingual site!

What do you do if "free" translates into a word that has 15 characters?

Comment 4

[Christopher Van Wiemeersch [:cvan]]

(In reply to Maria Sandberg [:mushi] from comment #3)
> (In reply to Chris Van Wiemeersch [:cvan] from comment #2)
> > Can we do better than that? "Free" is English, and we're a multilingual site!
> 
> What do you do if "free" translates into a word that has 15 characters?

"Libero" and "Gratuito" are the longest translations I've seen in the languages we support (Spanish and Portuguese).

Comment 5

[Maria Sandberg [:mushi]]

(In reply to Chris Van Wiemeersch [:cvan] from comment #4)
> "Libero" and "Gratuito" are the longest translations I've seen in the
> languages we support (Spanish and Portuguese).

In the languages we support right now. As per comment 1 I don't want the design to break based on something we can't control.

Comment 6

[krupa raj[:krupa]]

It is not very useful to have "call to action" buttons if people have no clue what they mean. I think we need to accommodate for localization and lengthy strings.

Comment 7

[Maria Sandberg [:mushi]]

(In reply to krupa raj 82[:krupa] from comment #6)
> It is not very useful to have "call to action" buttons if people have no
> clue what they mean. I think we need to accommodate for localization and
> lengthy strings.

I disagree that the word "free" in particular is one that a major part of our future user base would have no clue what it means. In the worst case I bet they could deduce it from comparing with call to action buttons that have do price on them. But since I'm speculating I'll check in with the user research team on this. They have much more information about our users. ccing Diane and Cori for input.

Comment 8

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

Please include l10n-drivers@m.o on any discussions.  Sacrificing L10n for design is setting a new precedent and I'm sure they'll have input.

It's also worth contacting the localizers to see if they could substitute a shorter word (although that doesn't scale forever).

Comment 9

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

we should expose the string to localization. if there's no better localization within the spacial constraints than to use the English jargon 'free', localizers can totally make that choice.

For strings with dramatic constraints, comments in the localized source that hint at how much visual screen estate is available help a great deal.

Comment 10

[krupa raj[:krupa]]

This also affects the star ratings for creatured apps on the category landing page.

Comment 11

[Matt Basta [:basta]]

Can we translate "Free" to the numeric equivalent instead, at least in the short term?

I.e.: $0.00

This would solve the layout breakage problem and still indicate that it doesn't cost anything to install.

Comment 12

[Christopher Van Wiemeersch [:cvan]]

(In reply to Matt Basta [:basta] from comment #11)
> Can we translate "Free" to the numeric equivalent instead, at least in the
> short term?
> 
> I.e.: $0.00
> 
> This would solve the layout breakage problem and still indicate that it
> doesn't cost anything to install.

That's definitely a fix, but "FREE" is easier to parse in English.

Comment 13

[Maria Sandberg [:mushi]]

(In reply to Chris Van Wiemeersch [:cvan] from comment #12)
> (In reply to Matt Basta [:basta] from comment #11)
> > Can we translate "Free" to the numeric equivalent instead, at least in the
> > short term?
> > 
> That's definitely a fix, but "FREE" is easier to parse in English.

We should figure out how to localize "free". Using the $0.00 is not what we want from a usability side. I don't know very little about how we do localization here - Alex, what would be the next steps?

Comment 14

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

What is the maximum number of characters we can show?  We can:

1) Put an l10n comment above the string saying that's the max length
2) Email the l10n list and give them a heads up
3) Put a logic check in the code that says if the string is longer than the max length, show 0.00 instead.

Any better ideas?

Comment 15

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

If we could get the measure in 'ch', one could probably hack up a test of sorts? that'd be independent of all possible font settings.

Comment 16

[Reuben Morais [:reuben]]

This is probably fixable in pt-BR by using "Grátis" instead of "Gratuito". I'm gonna defer this decision to Fernando since he's the AMO owner.

Comment 17

[Christopher Van Wiemeersch [:cvan]]

(In reply to Reuben Morais [:reuben] from comment #16)
> This is probably fixable in pt-BR by using "Grátis" instead of "Gratuito".
> I'm gonna defer this decision to Fernando since he's the AMO owner.

Can we fix this please?

Comment 18

[Reuben Morais [:reuben]]

(In reply to Chris Van Wiemeersch [:cvan] from comment #17)
> Can we fix this please?

I went ahead and changed it. This affects all other places where "Free" is used, since it's a single string in Verbatim. Leaving the bug open since Fernando should still acknowledge this change.

Comment 19

[Fernando Pereira Silveira]

this issue is addressed to next AMO pt-BR review
"Gratuito" -> "Grátis"

Comment 20

[Matt Basta [:basta]]

This looks fixed. Thanks all!