Time for Multi-Lingual Notebooks?

Understanding all the prompts and alerts on your notebook can be frustrating. But for some users navigating through Windows is all but impossible because they either don’t speak English, or English is their second language. Michael from HardwareGeeks.com started an interesting discussion about how many of his neighbors have computers in their homes, but don’t use them because of the language barrier.

Michael is Hispanic and says his neighbors have two recurring complaints about their computers:

Complaint 1: My mom or dad always bug me asking me what this and that means on the computer.
Complaint 2: I want to know what my kids are doing on the computer but I am uncomfortable reading English and really don’t understand anything on the computer.

He suggests that a computer manufacturer build a computer specifically for Hispanics that will offer flexibility and aid them in improving their English reading and comprehension skills. There could be a hybrid mode of Windows that appears in English, but has tool tips in Spanish.

I think this is a great idea and could help bridge the digital divide. I’d like to see it taken a step further though. It’d be great if Microsoft could extend this idea to several languages.

Some people argue that people should just learn English, but the reality is that a system like this would benefit us all by getting more people online.

Even people who speak English flawlessly can have trouble with basic ‘computer-English’. Michael’s post reminded me of a college friend who called me for help with her ‘rat.’ She said her ‘rat’ was moving around her computer too fast, but couldn’t find any instructions on how to fix er rat problem. I stopped by her dorm room and showed her how to control the speed of her ‘mouse.’