[Foundation-l] Font support for our domains

오현성 chamdarae at gmail.com
Sun Nov 1 04:08:26 UTC 2009


>
> > When you type in the Korean script,
> [...]
> > The vast majority of people do not know how to do this.
>
> What does a korean end user do now, when s/he wants to see a webpage?
> They cannot type any URL, right? I wonder.
>

The Korean keyboard is really just a modified Qwerty keyboard, and I don't
think I've ever seen one that didn't have Roman letters shown on the keys
alongside the Korean letters. There are extra keys for changing between the
Korean and Qwerty keyboard layouts, and for entering Chinese characters,
though these can only be used with MS Windows. (There are other ways to
switch keyboards when using Linux or Mac, and actually there are several
different Korean keyboard layouts, though only one is commonly used).

Most Korean Internet users are used to typing in Roman letters, but it would
a problem for new computer users, such as the pensioners mentioned in the
BBC article. Anyway, it would clearly be better if people didn't have to
keep changing to a foreign alphabet / keyboard layout when they wanted to
use the Internet (local Internet portals do partly solve that though).

The BBC article mentions the possibility of ghettoization, but the opposite
could happen if there is less need to rely on Internet portals in one's
native language or script.

 > our wikis are super usable, when our usability is much improved.
>
> I would guess, without any prior research, that people who cannot type
> latin script (though how they type URLs then is a mistery to me) would
> use search engines, and those doesn't really care about domain names.
>
> > that in a UNESCO study they found that 100% of a group of testsubjects
> were
> > not able to create a new article.
>
> You mean no Korean citizen whatsoever was able to create a new article?
> Weird.


I would guess that UNESCO's sample may not have been entirely
representative.

Richard


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