P923

Multi-Lingual Web Sites: Best Practice Guidelines and Architecture

closed

Multilinguality is quickly becoming a major issue for the European Telecommunications Companies. Telecommunications Companies are developing into full-service companies, that offer a wide range of services via the Internet. Many Web services must be offered in several languages. The design and maintenance of multilingual Web sites require tools and procedures well beyond what is needed for mono-lingual Web sites. Without suitable tools -based on standardised architectures for multilingual Web sites- these sites and the attendant services are very expensive to create and manage.

In previous R&D Projects in the field of Web and Language Technology it has appeared that truly multilingual developments are only possible if companies and research groups from different countries representing different languages collaborate. At the same time experience has shown that this type of R&D can only be successful if it is strictly guided by a set of well defined generic applications.

Although the work will have a direct impact on part of the business of the Telecommunications Companies, it is in an area where the technology will not become completely mature for at least a decade. EURESCOM shareholders will reap substantial benefits from the knowledge to be gathered on the architectures of multilingual Web sites and best practice guidelines for the creation and maintenance of such sites.

The development towards multilingual Web sites is only beginning. However, the development speed is increasing and Telecommunications Companies who have experience with cost-effective procedures for developing and maintaining multilingual Web sites will be in a position to acquire a considerable share of this emerging market. This will apply both to their own services and to their role as service providers for their customers.

The Project’s main focus is the development of best practice guidelines for the design of multilingual (and therefore essentially also multicultural) Web based information and transaction services. The problem will be approached in a bottom-up way: the R&D will be guided by the practical needs of people in the Telecommunications Companies who are responsible for the creation and maintenance of multilingual Web services. Experiments will be conducted in which the guidelines are implemented in the form of prototype tools and procedures that can be developed into commercial products and might be submitted to standards bodies after the conclusion of the Project.

What are the key results of this Project?

The main objectives of this Project are to:

• develop ‘best practice guidelines’ for building and maintaining multilingual Web sites and services
• develop a generic architecture for multilingual Web sites that supports efficient and effective creation and maintenance of such sites

The key results to be provided by the Project include:

• a generic architecture for multilingual Web sites that are easy to design and maintain
• best practice guidelines for building and maintaining multilingual Web sites
• inventory of existing tools for multilingual text production and knowledge about their suitability for aiding the creation and maintenance of multilingual Web sites
• practical experience with the creation and use of several multilingual Web sites