Accessibility Thinking: Do you really need a multilingual website?

Understanding Your Audience Needs

At its core, providing content in multiple languages is an accessibility issue. It's one that deeply affects how your audience engages with your organization. The right decision depends on understanding who you serve and what they genuinely need.

Your audience likely needs multilingual content if:

• They speak different languages natively, particularly for government services, education, healthcare, or community organizations where equal access to information is essential
• You're providing complex or critical content (medical, legal, educational) where insufficient language fluency creates genuine barriers to understanding (not just inconvenience)
• Your analytics show significant traffic from multiple language regions, or you're expanding into new markets where your primary language isn't widely spoken
• Your commitment to inclusion means ensuring you're not inadvertently excluding people based on language barriers

A single-language approach might serve your audience better if:

• Your data shows your audience genuinely operates in one language, or your field already uses a lingua franca that your audience prefers
• You're serving a specialized professional community that expects content in a specific language
• Your organization has limited capacity right now, and you'd rather deliver excellent content in one language than stretched-thin content in many

The key insight: you don't have to translate everything. Many successful organizations take a strategic approach: translating critical pages (homepage, key services, contact) into multiple languages while keeping detailed documentation or frequently updated content in their primary language.

This balances accessibility with sustainability.

Plone Multilingual: A Flexible, Free Approach

Plone multilingual is NOT an automatic translation tool.

That's actually a strength. It's built around the principle that good translation is about adaptation, not just conversion. This approach gives you:

• Creative freedom: Each language version can be crafted specifically for its audience. Your French homepage doesn't have to mirror your English one. It can highlight different aspects, use culturally resonant imagery, or adopt a tone that works better for that market.
• Quality control: For legal, medical, or educational content where accuracy is non-negotiable, human translation by qualified professionals ensures you meet compliance requirements and avoid dangerous ambiguities.
• SEO flexibility: Each language version can be optimized for regional search terms and user behavior rather than being constrained by the source language's structure.
• Selective translation: Plone links related content across languages while keeping each piece independent, so you can translate your 20 most important articles without being forced to translate all 50, or create entirely new content for specific audiences.

How it works: Plone maintains each piece of content independently in each language, links them as translations of each other, and allows users to navigate between versions seamlessly.

We actually did a little video for World Plone Day in 2024 ...

The Cost Advantage

Plone multilingual is completely free and built into Plone itself. There are no per-page fees, no translation costs (beyond your own translation resources), and no subscription charges. For organizations with in-house multilingual staff or access to volunteer translators, this represents significant savings.

However, "free" doesn't mean "without cost." You're still investing staff time in translation and content management. The value proposition is that you own the entire process and infrastructure.

Making the Decision

The right approach depends on your audience composition, content type, available resources, and organizational priorities.

If you have in-house multilingual expertise and value cultural adaptation and creative control, Plone multilingual with manual translation gives you complete ownership. If you need certified accuracy for regulated content or lack native-speaker expertise, combining Plone with professional translation services ensures quality. If you're handling high volumes where speed matters more than perfection, AI-powered services integrated with Plone can streamline workflows.

The decision isn't just technical. It's strategic.

The take-away here

Done well, multilingual content opens your digital doors to audiences who might otherwise be excluded. Done poorly, it wastes resources and damages credibility.

Plone multilingual offers a powerful foundation that respects the complexity of real translation work by giving you control over how content is adapted for each audience. Whether you choose manual translation, professional services, or AI-powered tools, approach multilingual content as a long-term commitment to accessibility and inclusion.

Start by asking: who are we trying to reach, and what do they genuinely need? The technology decisions will follow from there.

Keen to chat about whether you need a multilingual site? Talk to us and let us help you make the decision and put together a plan of action if you do.