Do Arab Startups Really Need An Arabic Interface? [Poll Results]
In the latest poll on StartUpArabia, the question to the readers was:
Do Arab startups really need an Arabic interface?
The result of reader voting came out as follows:
- 41% of readers thought it was preferable for the website to have an Arabic interface.
- 32% of the readers thought it was a must.
- 20% of them thought that it wasn’t necessary.
- The remaining 8% said they didn’t really care
Personally, I’m somewhere between ‘preferable’ and ‘must’, shifting between the two depending on the case, I guess.
A big percentage of internet users in the Arab world are most comfortable using the Arabic language online, instead of English or French, and deciding not to launch an Arabic interface for a website directly alienates those people, cutting out an important part of the service’s possible target audience, which can’t really be good business-wise no matter how you look at it.
2 Responses to “Do Arab Startups Really Need An Arabic Interface? [Poll Results]”
Jordan Wahbeh on May 20, 2008 | Reply
This is a revealing study. I wonder what was the sample size, and the audience type.
Such information is critical to adding significance to the results?
Mohamed Marwen Meddah on May 20, 2008 | Reply
Well it’s not really a well organized study or anything, it’s just a little opinion poll that the site’s readers voted on over the period of a bit over 3 weeks.
66 readers voted, giving their opinions on this issue, and the results are the ones listed above.