Language selection menus

[ewx]

I don't think they've thought this through:

Just to emphasize the point, imagine you're looking for “English”:

Comments

[antinomy.livejournal.com]

I suppose, when faced with a menu like the second, you try the options in sequential order until you find the one you want, and pray that they're arranged the same in all languages (rather than alphabetically in each language, for instance)...

[ewx.livejournal.com]

They’re not in quite the same order in fact - I think the “current” one is always first. For speakers of European languages it might be sufficient to find something which uses the Roman alphabet but I can imagine Chinese users being completely stymied.

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Yes, in the Chinese list I'm pretty sure Chinese is first and English second. (The others I can't remember.)

[antinomy.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that will permute the rest of the list really excitingly unpredictably, if they're all unknowns!

[pm215]

And the third one ought to be "legalese", right? :-)

[pne.livejournal.com]

Sort of :)

"French", though.

Just like the last one isn't "virtue-ese" but "German". (And the one between them is "Spanish".

[naath.livejournal.com]

Well, I know "English" in English, French and German and could probably take a good guess in Spanish... the Chinese I'd have no idea (but as it happens 'select any other language' puts it in something I understand). If it included Japanese, Russian or any other non-Roman-alphabet language *and* changed order with selection you could be at it all day!

[armb.livejournal.com]

The worst case is when a menu like that for language setting is a one-time installation setting, and changing it later is an option deeply buried in a preference menu somewhere....