Cabinet Office
It is important that web managers publish information in all appropriate languages.
This not only ensures that the information is accessible to the widest possible audience but also that members of the public are not being prevented from using the information because of the community from which they originate.
Use each checklist to ensure that your web pages comply with these guidelines
2.7.1 Checklist and summary: Recommended
Checklist
Summary
Most web content is written in English yet we have a large number of users who read and speak English as a second or third language or indeed not at all.
For services provided to the public in Wales, and with due regard to the Welsh Language Act, the Welsh and English languages must be treated on a basis of equality. In Wales, bilingual information is provided to the public as a matter of course. See section 1.10.6 Welsh Language Act.
2.7.2 Using other languages
Technology is developing to deliver web resources in many written forms, and in audio, and content authors and web managers need to be aware of these.
A number of points should be borne in mind:
2.7.3 Language anchor pages
If your website contains material in any minority languages or in any European Union languages it is essential to provide an index (anchor) page for each language.
Users reading non-English language pages will not be able to find a menu in their language from your home page. The anchor page can be bookmarked so that these users can go direct to a menu in their own language.
This anchor page will form a key element in any future system of portals for users following versions in languages other than English.
Key points to remember:
2.7.3.1 Example of a bilingual prompt to download a PDF reader - instruction in English and Welsh
In English:
The following document is available in portable document format for downloading. The Adobe Acrobat Reader® can be freely downloaded.
Viewers with visual difficulties may find it useful to investigate services provided to improve the accessibility of Acrobat documents - http://access.adobe.com.
In Welsh:
Mae’r canlynol ar gael ar ffurf Adobe Acrobat. Mae’n bosib llwytho Adobe ® Acrobat http://access.adobe.com yma. Efallai y bydd o ddefnydd I ddarllenwyr a chanddynt nam ar y golwg I ymchwillo I’r gwasanaethau sy’n gwneud dogfennau Acrobat yn fwy hygyrch.
2.7.3.2 Examples of a bilingual navigation - in English and Welsh
Previous/Blaenorol | Contents/Cynnwys | Next/Nesaf
Return to: National Assembly for Wales
Yn Ôl i : Tudalen Gartref Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru"
2.7.3.3 Example of a bilingual anchor page - Bengali and English
Page title: Bengali
Document
Text link
Disability Relief Scheme (a 350kb PDF file)
<hyperlink to the Bengali language version>
Graphic link
<This image file is to hyperlink to the Bengali language version, alt attribute “Disability Relief Scheme - in Bengali”>
PDF reader prompt
The Bengali language documents accessed from this page are in portable document format for downloading. The Adobe Acrobat Reader® can be freely
2.7.4 HTML Meta Charset element
To facilitate the viewing of multilingual web content Web managers should ensure that the meta HTTP content-type charset attribute is used. This element tells the client’s browser what character set to use when rendering the content. For example:
<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=iso-8859-1”>
Including this element in the header of an HTML page tells the browser that the content was encoded with the ISO 8859-1 (Latin, western European) character set.
<meta http-equiv=”content-type” content=”text/html; charset=Windows-1251”>
Including this element in the header of an HTML page tells the browser that the content was encoded with the Windows-1252 (Western) code page that is a superset of the ISO 8859-1 character set.
2.7.5 BSI and other presentational requirements
A British Standard on translation details a number of points that Web managers will find valuable in content management.
The front cover (in the web case, your homepage) should contain:
2.7.5.1 Transliteration
Names of organisations or particular initiatives should be translated, or transliterated, at their first occurrence. On pages in languages other then English or Welsh the translation or, where necessary, the transliteration, should appear in the text, followed by the English version in brackets.
On pages in languages other than English or Welsh, the names of organisations, particular initiatives or programmes known by their initials should be treated similarly, with the English initially appearing in brackets. Subsequent references should consist of the translated or transliterated initials only.
2.7.5.2 Addresses
Apart from on pages in Welsh, or bilingual English and Welsh pages, addresses should not be translated, but a brief description of each organisation should appear before its address, if appropriate. In all language versions other than the English, the terms telephone, fax and email should be translated but the numbers and email address should remain as in English (or Welsh) no matter what the language. URIs must remain in English or Welsh.
2.7.5.3 Numbers
All numbers should remain in English (on Welsh language pages, in Welsh, or on bilingual English and Welsh pages, in both languages), together with the units to which they refer, provided these are commonly used units. For example, units of currency.
2.7.5.4 Emphases and hierarchy of headings
All emphases in the English (or Welsh) version, eg, bold should, where possible, be preserved in the translation, as must the hierarchy of headings.
2.7.5.5 Logos
No elements of departmental logos should be translated without approval of the management of the department/agency corporate identity.
2.7.5.6 Copyright and other legal notices
These should appear in both English (and for websites servicing the public in Wales, in Welsh) and in the translated language.
2.7.6 Character sets
When a web page is delivered to your browser, each character pattern (glyph) that is to be rendered is encoded as a numerical value (codepoint). The set of correspondences between codepoints and the glyphs is usually referred to as a character set or code page. Different languages use different sets of glyphs (scripts) and consequently use different character sets to encode them.
Some web browsers, notably Microsoft Internet Explorer, are able to display a wide range of scripts and their associated writing systems. This capability to display web content in other scripts is independent of the language version of either the browser or the underlying operating system.
In Internet Explorer, character sets are grouped into ‘language packs’ as follows:
2.7.7 Examples
Examples of different languages, their space requirements in comparison with English and any particular remarks about the language and character set:
2.7.8 Unicode - the future
The complexity associated with handling multiple character sets is intended to be rationalised by the ISO 10646 (Unicode) standard. The universal adoption of Unicode will make dealing with multilingual web content simpler and the Unicode standard has been adopted by the W3C.
2.7.9 Example of other languages anchor pages used by the former DSS
