The Localisation Research Centre’s 10th Annual Localisation Conference was the venue for the presentation of the 2005 LRC Best Global Website Award, sponsored by Europe’s largest interactive marketing agency, Euro RSCG 4D.

The aim of the Best Global Website award is to find Europe’s most innovative website in relation to multilingual and multicultural issues and to raise awareness of these issues amongst web developers and policy makers. This year’s award attracted a large number of entries from many different types of organisations ranging from relatively low-scale community sites to extremely high-tech commercial sites.

The 2005 Best Global Website Award review panel consisted of eminent experts in the area of marketing, web design, internationalisation and localisation from Euro RSCG 4D, EHS Brann, STAR Servicios Lingüísticos, the Localisation Research Centre and the Institute of Localisation Professionals. The panel highlighted the importance of the award as a significant encouragement to business people and web developers to integrate multilingual and multicultural mechanisms into their website designs.

The panel agreed to include the following areas as part of their review:

• Number of languages.
• Regularity of update schedule.
• Excellent quality at all levels (linguistic, content, design, usability, programming)
• Cultural compliance.

In an unprecedented move the panel unanimously decided to present the LRC Best Global Website Award 2005 ex aequo to www.mondialogo.org and www.axelbeaqueen4aday.com / www.axelsiquiero.com.

www.mondialogo.org was developed by Schmidt und Kaiser for DaimlerChrysler and UNESCO. The site provides information in four languages on the importance of cultural diversity, as well as seeking to promote intercultural dialogue, understanding and exchange among young people. It has been very successful and so far more than 25,000 students have participated in the project.

www.axelbeaqueen4aday.com / www.axelsiquiero.com was developed by eOne for Hotel Axel. The site is part of a multilingual e-marketing campaign for a Hotel based in Barcelona. It consists on an online game playable in five languages that reproduces a virtual wedding for either heterosexual or homosexual couples.

The panel also decided to give special mentions to three sites for their outstanding contribution to multilingual and multicultural web design:

Maison de la France (www.franceguide.com)
This website offers an impressive array of languages with an amazing wealth of up-to-date content. Content is adapted to each of the markets, and localised to a very high degree. It is a great example of excellence in localisation.

Global Local Networks (www.comarcalia.com)
The comarcalia website demonstrates that web directories do not need to be dry and boring. All the information is easily accessible in all available languages and he navigation is clear and intuitive, making use of maps and other interactive elements to facilitate searches. .

Mercury Interactive (www.mercury.com)
The Mercury website was chosen as a finalist in recognition of the elegant way that the localised versions of the site have been seamlessly integrated into the design of the main site,
and because of the user-friendly navigation that allows easy access to information in all languages.

The Localisation Research Centre would like to thank all companies that entered sites in this year’s award and would also like to thank Euro RSCG 4D for their continued sponsorship and confidence in the award.