| |||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||
It's worse than that...It's worse than that...Posted Aug 30, 2002 19:15 UTC (Fri) by Peter (guest, #1127)In reply to: It's worse than that... by sab39 Parent article: GNOME Summary
(Disclaimer: I do not speak or write any bidi languages.) If your language goes from right to left, why would you think of an arrow pointing to the left is a useful metaphor for "back"? Hmmmmmmmm, very good point. Your other points, about window tabs and so forth, are good as well. However, there is a practical issue: computers are predominantly Western, and UI development seems to be almost exclusively so. People who speak Semitic languages probably already use applications with window tabs on the left, <- arrows meaning "back", and so forth. While it may not seem natural to them in their native languages, it is a convention to which most are probably already accustomed. Changing the layout of an entire window just because it is being used in an Arabic locale would seem to cause continuity problems for those users migrating from less advanced software, or less advanced versions of the same software. Chicken and egg, indeed. If one can assume Semitic language users will predominantly be people new to computer GUIs, OTOH, your proposals make perfect sense. The mouse cursor itself should, of course, be mirrored as well. I'm gonna have to remember to ask my sister (a trained linguist who can read/write Hebrew) about this....
(Log in to post comments)
|
|
||||||||||||