919869 - Integrate a richer Universal Language Selector

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(www.mozilla.org :: Information Architecture & UX, enhancement)

Description

[Kohei Yoshino]

I've implemented a simple dropdown language switcher in Bug 773371, but the original request was creating a Universal Language Selector that can be applied to various Mozilla properties. It will improve international user experience along with the translation bar that I've implemented in Bug 906943.

(Bug 773371 Comment 0)
> Universal Language Selector tool that will allow users to select a language
> and configure its support in an easy way. 
> 
> Please allow users to switch the language of m.o website. 
> 
> 
> Technical specification:
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Universal_Language_Selector
> 
> Source code:
> https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/q/project:
> mediawiki/extensions/UniversalLanguageSelector,n,z

(Bug 773371 Comment 8)
> Screenshots from the current code: 
> 
> http://kushal.fedorapeople.org/screen1.png
> http://kushal.fedorapeople.org/screen2.png

(Bug 773371 Comment 9)
> My git branch containing the code:
> 
> https://github.com/kushaldas/bedrock/tree/uls 
> 
> Commit details can be seen at
> https://github.com/kushaldas/bedrock/commit/
> d7dca345f19d58569945eeabcc6b44e4fab7a65f

Other examples:

https://www.facebook.com/
https://www.youtube.com/
https://twitter.com/
https://www.google.com/search?q=language+switcher+OR+language+switcher&tbm=isch

Comment 1

[Kohei Yoshino]

I should change the summary and dependency...

Comment 2

[Jennifer Bertsch [:jbertsch]]

Holly - Could you please review and comment.  I think we should clarify the Call to Action.

Kohei - How does this relate to the option with a white strip on the top of the page?

Adding to "coding" column on Kanban board.

Comment 3

[Kohei Yoshino]

(In reply to Jennifer Bertsch [:jbertsch] from comment #2)
> Kohei - How does this relate to the option with a white strip on the top of
> the page?

This Universal Language Selector may enhance user experience of the simple language selector at the bottom of the page (Bug 773371). Some problems of the current language selector:

* If there are many translations, the dropdown list can be quite long. In that case, it's difficult for users to find their language quickly from the list. http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/ has already had the issue.

* The style of the language selector varies by Mozilla properties. Usually it's a simple dropdown list at the bottom of the page, but MDN has two selectors in one page, and SUMO has no quick selector. We could provide a unified experience beyond properties.

* As reported in Bug 915858, the language selector on www.mozilla.org is not a site-wide option but the list of the available translations of that page, while it's sticky on other properties. We could provide a unified experience beyond properties here too.

In terms of the style, personally I prefer YouTube's selector. It may work well with responsive Web design. The stickiness is a difficult question but we could offer a better experience, for example, by using a cookie.

Comment 4

[Jennifer Bertsch [:jbertsch]]

William R, Justin, Ibai and Ali-

Are you interested in collaborating on a solution for this across all our sites?

Thx,
Jen

Comment 5

[ali spivak]

Yes, I'd love to collaborate on this and have one solution across Mozilla...

Comment 6

[Ibai Garcia [:ibai]]

Let's do it. Extra points if we can make the selection live across sites (if I change the language in SUMO it changes it in moz.org, mdn, etc)

Comment 7

[Jennifer Bertsch [:jbertsch]]

Cmore, Ali, and I were just chatting about it here in MV this am.  It could probably work across all sites if we make it part of Tabzilla.

Comment 8

[Ibai Garcia [:ibai]]

Not to derail the conversation but I think it would move us to the "One Mozilla" experience even more.

Some edge cases that we need to consider:
- Users who want to use the browser in English (moz.org download page) but receive help in their locale language (SUMO)
- Users who use the browser in the local language (moz.org download) but prefer to read technical documentation in English (MDN).

Not sure how big of a group they represent, but worth keeping in mind.

Comment 9

[Holly Habstritt Gaal [:Habber]]

A couple of comments about integrating with tabzilla: Putting a language selector within tabzilla content would then hide it from view. If we place it in the tab itself next to the word mozilla (http://cl.ly/image/3P331d1I0H0c) then I think we are asking this area to do too much. Clicking on the tab should be reserved for opening it. However, we could consider having the selector live outside and next to the tab area wherever tabzilla exists.

Comment 10

[Chris More [:cmore]]

(In reply to Holly Habstritt [:Habber] from comment #9)
> A couple of comments about integrating with tabzilla: Putting a language
> selector within tabzilla content would then hide it from view. If we place
> it in the tab itself next to the word mozilla
> (http://cl.ly/image/3P331d1I0H0c) then I think we are asking this area to do
> too much. Clicking on the tab should be reserved for opening it. However, we
> could consider having the selector live outside and next to the tab area
> wherever tabzilla exists.

Actually, we didn't mean putting it inside the closed state of Tabzilla. The question is that could the language selector be integrated into the bedrock Tabzilla so that it comes universal since everyone pulls Tabzilla from bedrock. This may not be technically possible now that I think about how Tabzilla works.

Comment 11

[Kohei Yoshino]

I did a quick research on the language selectors among Mozilla sites:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ai6cvZTs2AkOdDI5UlFhOXNyanpuelUyR1NCX196TGc

Comment 12

[Justin Crawford [:hoosteeno] [:jcrawford]]

Yes, sounds like a worthwhile effort.

Comment 13

[William Reynolds [:williamr]]

(In reply to Jennifer Bertsch [:jbertsch] from comment #4)
> Are you interested in collaborating on a solution for this across all our
> sites?

Certainly. Thanks for suggesting this idea, Kohei.