Importance of Regional Language Features for UI

A UI is intended to make the user feel comfortable in interacting with the application or website, as the case may be. The most basic component of any interaction is “language”. It is the prime tool of communication between various people which most people realize while travelling to foreign lands where verbal communication has to be replaced by a self-devised sign language to interact with the local population. Language problems often lead to insufficient communication, or even worse, incorrect communication.

These problems of miscommunication arising due to incompatibility of languages have intruded the user interfaces of various websites and applications. So far, we have seen that English has been doing a fine job as a standard language for interaction in all language incongruity situations be it in UI’s or otherwise. But in the vision of extending the use of web to people who are reluctant to learning a foreign language, regional language support becomes increasingly important.

The one major obstruction in the path of popularization of the use of web has been that many people residing in rustic areas are apprehensive of learning English, which they believe is a prerequisite for anyone who wishes to use the net. As such, these people fail to enjoy the opulence offered by the web, which is indeed reprehensible.

To address this issue, initiatives have already been taken by various developers by including support for regional languages in the user interface. Take, for instance, Google web search, which I believe, is the starting point for most web-surfers. The users are free to choose their preferred language from a host of available options for the same as shown here.

Inclusion of a regional language feature is important in two respects. One, it leads to an addition in the number of users in the form of English-ignorant people, who can now browse in their own language. Two, even those users who are comfortable with browsing in English, might feel more comfortable and confident when they get to use their own native language. I feel this idea needs to be promoted beyond the web, and must be incorporated in the UI’s of all kinds of applications as well. Quite a few UI’s are already equipped with this, but I hope to see a future with all kinds of UI’s supporting all kinds of languages.