Language drop-down menu icons: Flags, ISO codes, or something else?

[Cute James]

Hello chaps,

 

We are in the process of rolling out a multi-language version of the this site, and I am considering what kind of icons to show (if any?) beside each language name.

 

I like the appearance of country flags, however I appreciate that these are inaccurate (country ? language), and may therefore offend some visitors.

 

 

ISO 639-1 language codes are more accurate (and therefore less likely to offend), but visually uninteresting.  I wonder if using different colours (as the Gmail app shows for contacts without profile pictures) for each language would help here?

 

 

Or perhaps it would be preferable to simply show the language name, without any icon?

 

 

What do you think?  All feedback/comments gratefully received!

 

Thank you.

[Seahorsepip Veteran]

Feel free to use flags, can't imagine someone to be offended by that.

[Cute James]

  On 29/08/2014 at 05:48, Seahorsepip said:

Feel free to use flags, can't imagine someone to be offended by that.

Have you seen this?

 

http://flagsarenotlanguages.com

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Getting offended over using a flag is odd, but the bigger issue is that they're just not a good fit (Being from UK doesn't mean you speak English, etc.)

I'd just leave off the icons and include the plain text language names, looks nicer anyway.

[Seahorsepip Veteran]

Personally I think flags are easier to recognise and so more user friendly, but if your webpage looks already structured and not too messy it doesn't actually matter.

[Shiranui]

I say go with the last one.

[tiagosilva29]

Flags have nothing to do with a language context (unless you deal with Esperanto?).

You should place the necessary accesibility notification and then list like:

[name of the language as text in the same language] ([name of the language in the language of the present page])