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[NEWBIE] Trying to make text switch content

Sent by Dave on 4 January 2005 16:04


Adam,

> On the other hand, I am trying to envision why you'd want the other 
> language to appear only on mouseover, and I can't think of a good use 
> case.

Thank you for advice. The point you make that what I am doing blurs the 
line between content and display is well taken. And I hope I won't upset 
any purists to the point where they won't help me in my task.

I'll try to keep this brief, as it strays from pure CSS discussion, but 
I thought it worth mentioning that in the blurring of the line between 
content and display is, I believe, justified.

To people living outside of Japan, having a rollover that is in English 
in static, and in Japanese when rolled over may seem to make navigation 
more obscure, not less. However, there are two things that need to be 
kept in mind. One is that almost all Japanese people are taught English 
to some degree at school, most can grasp simple words and short phrases, 
and just about everyone would like to speak English. That may not be 
enough to base a navigation system on, except for point two - simply 
put, English is cool in Japan.

Being a bilingual web designer, the whole point of hiring me, from the 
point of view of the Japanese market, is to bridge the gap between 
information that needs to be displayed (in Japanese), and information 
that's made cool (in English). I make sites that are bilingual, which 
comes with a price of taking up space. having the same information twice 
on any page sucks up screen real estate. Take away the English and it 
isn't as cool, take away the Japanese, and no one can fully use it. For 
most content, I'm stuck with having to have both present.

But with rollovers, I can save space. The effect is that most web site 
visitors I'm targeting can get a general sense of what a button means, 
and then their suspicions are confirmed when they mouse over and it's 
understandable. My limited surveys indicate that this is a very 
satisfying experience for Japanese web site visitors. And there's the 
added bonus of the fact that English speakers can also navigate the site.

I don't know if this situation exists in other countries. I could see in 
Canada, maybe, using French and English this way, except that there 
isn't any coolness factor associated with either language. But in any 
case, this is the situation in Japan, and I'm using it as best I can.

Sorry, that came out a bit longer than I intended. I hope in any case 
that will clarify my objectives and put to rest anymore theoretical 
talk. I'd really like to get back to making these rollovers happen.

-- 
Dave Gutteridge
[EMAIL-REMOVED]
Tokyo Comedy Store
http://www.tokyocomedy.com/english/

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