Comparing the Usability of Three Dual-Language School Websites

This study evaluated the usability of three websites for Spanish-English Dual Language K-8 schools. Twelve participants (6 parents, 6 teachers) reviewed and performed tasks on the three public school websites. Site usability was determined through both objective and subjective measures, including task completion time, first-click, total number of pages visited, task success, perceived task difficulty, user satisfaction, and overall ranked preference. Results indicated that one site was preferred more than the others by both user groups and resulted in more efficient search behavior. Clear navigation, link terminology, and proper use of both languages were found to be critical factors contributing to the sites’ usability.

Naidu, Shivashankar, Veronica D. Hinkle and Sav Shrestha. Usability News (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Localization

Understanding Usability Issues of Bidirectional Bilingual Websites

Over the past ten years, there has been an ever-increasing amount of usability recommendations for improving website design. Much of the data has focused on navigation of single-language websites. But few studies have tackled the problems of bilingual sites, and virtually no information has been gathered about usability of bilingual or multilingual sites where the languages are not written in the same direction (for example, English, which is read from left-to-right, and Hebrew, which is read from right-to-left).

Guren, Leah. Usability Interface (2007). Articles>Web Design>Localization>Usability