Breaking barriers: Revolutionising Online Communication with the NEW Multilingual Navigation

In this globalised and digitalised world, the need for seamless communication across linguistic barriers has never been more pronounced. On the other hand, the European Union has a legacy of languages spoken in its territory. Recognising this need, a multilingual navigation feature has been introduced, promising to transform user experiences across diverse language preferences within European Institutions sites. 

This innovative approach integrates the Webtools machine translation (eTrans component) widget into the European Commission's Web Publishing Platform (EWPP), along with intuitive UX elements and configurable back-office settings, heralding a new era of accessible and inclusive online interaction.

Understanding the Mechanism:

The multilingual navigation feature operates to facilitate seamless language transition, and here you can find the breakdown of its key functionalities: 

Language integration: Human-translated and machine-translated content are no longer segregated within the language switcher. Instead, every node has a source language for its content, serving as the primary language during editing. The sole identifier of an eTranslated page is the URL, accompanied by an eTranslation notification at the top of the page after the load completes. In other words, no more separate language menus!

User control:

Users can navigate across languages through two different ways:

 - Local and Remote translation: Human translated content or translations provided by ePoetry are presented when available.

- User initiated translation: Machine translation are activated by the user upon their first click, this ensures personalised language preferences overriding default browser settings.

All these will bring you straight to the content in your language!

Seamless navigation: Once initated, eTranslation integrates with the user's browsing session. The page's content will be in the node-specific language of the source content or the previously shown language until the eTranslation spinner completes, at which point the translation takes effect.

If a user navigates to a manually translated page in the same language, EWPP redirects them to the human-translated content in the selected language. If the subsequent page lacks human translation, the machine translation workflow takes over without initiation or confirmation from the user.

Intelligent redirection: Users are automatically redirected to the corresponding page in their selected language. In the absence of such translation, the machine translation takes over without user confirmation. How does it work? The URL slug, the last part of a full URL, retains the original language code and eTranslation parameter throughout the process.

Flexibility: Users have the full control and flexibility throughout the whole translation process, therefore they can cancel ongoing translation and revert to the original language or even select an alternative language at any point. Although the switcher doesn't explicitly indicate the original language, the option to revert is immediately available.

If eTranslation returns an error, the user can retry or choose another language from the switcher.
If the user arrives at the site with a complete URL containing the language code, browser detection is not utilized.

All in all, the multilingual navigation feature is an advanced translation technology with intuitive user interfaces, which empowers users to remove any linguistic barrier!

This feature is a clear example of digital power and how technology can foster connectivity!