MSN

MSN has really catered to their multi-lingual customers.

Here is the UK version http://uk.msn.com/

The Japanese version http://jp.msn.com/

The UAE version http://arabic.arabia.msn.com/

A company with a good multilingual website(s) should take into consideration placement of texts and images, colour, translation, keywords and usability. Different cultures read in different ways so placement of text and images is very important to the overall usability, acceptance and conversions of a site. Western cultures read left to right, whilst Middle Eastern cultures read right to left and Pacific cultures read top to bottom. The UK version had lots of pictures and links to extra stories. The UAE (Arab) MSN site is very user friendly I found.  The text flowed from right the left. The site was actually in Arabic rather than a few words translated here and there like I have found on other sites, there are fewer pictures than the UK version, but the site that was the most text focused was the Japanese version, very text orientated with little pictures.  Once again MSN have done a brilliant job in catering for their Japanese customers by making it totally Japanese with no English apart from names like Outlook, Twitter, and Facebook. Colour holds very different meanings in different countries, so it’s important to understand the meanings. MSN have kept all three sites looking very neutral using very little colour on the backgrounds.

One criticism would be that when on the English and Japanese site, I could not find how to switch from one language/country to another. On the Arab UAE version of the site, I could see there was the option to change to the English, KSA, North-Africa or Egypt versions of the site. But no wider range. MSN could perhaps add a drop-down bar with languages and flags to choose from to get rid of this problem.