Web Localisation, Accessibility and Usability of Websites in the Swiss Watch Industry

The present study examines the localisation, accessibility and usability of multilingual websites in the Swiss watch industry. The web sample explored includes 36 pages from four watch brands; concretely, three pages per website and in three language versions – English, French and German. Our work aimed at investigating whether these multilingual websites respect usability guidelines, if cultural dimensions are depicted in the websites, and whether they are conformant with general accessibility guidelines. The websites were analyzed followed a mixed method approach, obtaining both quantitative and qualitative results. The findings of the study indicate that, overall, brands follow usability and accessibility guidelines, and cultural dimensions can be identified across language versions. Interestingly enough, the English language version shows better results with regard to usability best practices. This result contradicts the findings of previous studies which support that the assumed source language of the website should perform better in terms of accessibility and usability results