This chapter describes why and how languages, writing systems, cultures, and regional requirements impact UI design.
In S60 UI design, it is important to bear in mind that more than 40 languages need to be supported and in the future the number will be expanding. Therefore, the UI and software design should be as generic as possible. No release can be passed on to customers with the so-called "Engineering English" only. If it is not possible to make the UI and software generic, they should be as easily customizable as possible. Customization is needed for creating language, regional, and operator variants. It should be noted that some operators require also terminology variation.
In UI design, also regional features need to be given consideration. For instance, Chinese has got some regional features and applications (Lunar calendar, Dictionary), Arabic and Hebrew require mirroring of a number of UI elements, and the Japanese Phonebook has a reading field for the Japanese names, since one kanji character can have more than a dozen different pronunciations. These are only some examples of the current regional requirements affecting the UI design.
S60 provides reference font and reference localization. The localization works only if the font metrics follows the S60 font metrics.