Big Little Shame — a Tale of Empowered User Experience Through Localisation

Generic masculine terms in the microcopy of a user interface can be difficult to get rid of. In English, many male-centric terms can simply be replaced by more inclusive synonyms, for other languages the exclusion of women is embedded in their very grammar. Since WordPress has committed to “design for the majority”, translation editors face a problem way bigger than just translating as many plugins and themes in as short of a time as possible. This is the story of how just the language we use can exclude people, and how translators play an important role in empowering users through localisation.

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