Resources

For an excellent book on cultural customization, see "The Culturally Customized Web Site: Customizing Websites for the Global Marketplace," by Nitish Singh, PhD.

Globalization Partners International has created a more extensive overview of website globalization for several global markets in a series of Website Globalization and E-Business Series white papers, which you may download for free. You may also benefit by reviewing the following blogs on different aspects of website translation and website localization:

·         Website Internationalization and Accessibility

·         Website Translation, Localization and Internationalization

Why are Multilingual Keywords important for your international websites?

What individualist feature is being used here to hit the sweet spot?

Basic Rules for Colour Use

Three Rules
1. Keep it Functional- The meaning of the color should be clear.
2. Research Political Conflicts- Ensure that color choice won't contract sharply with nearby locals or intended context.
3. Keep it Context dependent- make sure you understand the color and its cultural significance.

Color Categories

Different Colors means different things to people in different cultures. This is because color have a high symbolic value among different culture.

Austria

BLUE, GREEN, AND WHITE

(least are like purple and gold)

USA

BLUE, GREEN, AND BLACK

(least are like orange and yellow)

Brazil

WHITE, BLUE AND GREEN

(least are like orange and gold)

Unicode

The most important thing in the website is that it should be able to display any language. For writing character and text there is an universal character encoding standard. It defines a consistent way of encoding multilingual text. Unicode characters are represented in one of three encoding forms: a 32-bit form (UTF-32), a 16-bit form (UTF-16), and an 8-bit form (UTF-8). UTF-8 has been designed for ease of use with existing ASCII-based systems and it is usually the default encoding that you should be using on any webpage. Setting up the right encoding will ensure that your websites's contents will be correctly displayed. Most Content Management System (CMS) already handle all content as UTF-8 encoded text. 

Cultures Values

There are four culture values:
1. Individualism and collectivism
2. Power Distance
3. Uncertainty avoidance
4. Masculinity-Femininity

what is Culturally Customized websites?

A website that reflects complete "immersion" in the culture of the target market. Cultural Customization is an basic step for reaching a global audience with your website, and should be completed as a part of websites translation and website localization. while many websites owners treat this step as optional, it should be treated as integral.
A website that address three levels of cultural adaptation; perception, symbolism, and behavior.
A website that goes beyond simple translation and cosmetic adaptation when targeting different countries or cultures.
In short, Cultural Customization begins where basic "localization" ends.

Book related to Culturally Customized Website