A Single Façade? SHIL – Consistent Service for Multicultural Audience

The Internet had grown to be a global and multilingual phenomenon [1]. A growing number of companies and organizations are offering their services to a global, multicultural audience. However, translating the service to different language is not enough to make the service usable by users of diverse cultures. A very large number of nation states and constituent audiences are multilingual [1]. Usability studies [5] have shown that in order to promote effective usage, local versions of user interfaces should be emphasized and the system usability should be tested with audience from different countries, cultures and language communities. In this paper we present a concept model for localizing consistent Internet services for multicultural and multilingual populations. The concept addresses the needs of SHIL – a government and welfare Internet information delivery system for the Citizens’ Advice Service Bureau in Israel [6]. The system aims to provide information services in four languages (Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and English), to address the needs of the culturally diverse population of Israel. The paper defines the challenges and constraints that lie ahead of an Internet service aimed at multicultural audience. Following is a suggested technological and organizational solution. Finally we argue that the concept can be applied generically to situations in which the same coherent global service should be localized.