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Every once in a while I’m confronted with displaying a list of available languages, and each and every time I ask my self:
Is it better to display the language in:
Examples:
- English
- German
- French
or
- English
- Deutsch
- Français
Is there any convention on which one should be used, is more polite or better in any other way? Are there other options?
I definitely think you should display in the language that matches the item in the button list.
Reasons:
If it’s not the language you’re interested in, you won’t mind if you don’t understand it, as long as you can find your own language.
Think about the last time you called customer service. How many times have you heard something like, “Para Espanol, marque dos”? It’s very common, accepted practice to mix different languages in one UI (whether visual or audible).
Think about how you’d feel if you went to a Spanish site, and you couldn’t find your language under “E”. Maybe, eventually, you’d notice “Ingles”, and think it probably translated to “English”, but it’s definitely better to save the user the trouble of translating and mentally alphabetizing.