Head First Web Design

Appendix A. Leftovers: The Top Ten Things (we didn’t cover)

We’ve really covered a lot of ground in this book. The thing is, there are some important topics and tidbits that didn’t quite fit into any of the previous chapters. We feel pretty strongly about these and think that if we didn’t at least cover them in passing, we’d be doing you a disservice. That is where this chapter comes into the picture. Well, it’s not really a chapter; it’s more like an appendix (ok, it is an appendix). But it’s an awesome appendix of the top ten best bits that we couldn’t let you go without.

#1: Cross-cultural & international design

The Web is a truly global place—and that means your websites have to be too. People from every corner of the globe are checking out your sites. The thing is, everyone has a different cultural, linguistic, and ethnic background—all of which might impact how they interpret your site’s design. There are some things you should keep in mind when you are designing a site for an international audience (or an audience whose culture is different from your own).

Icons have different cultural meanings

Icons are cool and can convey a lot of information in a little bit of space. But what an icon means to you might be completely different from what that icons means to someone in another country or culture:

Different languages have different lengths

If you translate the content of your site ...