Standard formats are key to your site’s ability to display and collect data, though these can change from country to country. For example, Americans generally format dates as month-day-year, whereas the standard in many other countries is day-month-year or year-month-day. The varying order of dates can cause confusion and errors particularly when numbers are used for dates, such as 01-02-06.
Dates are just the beginning. Users from other countries will use different formats and units for many things, including:
- Punctuation in numbers (for example 1,234.56 in the US may be written as 1.234,56 in the UK)
- Format of telephone numbers and addresses
- Use of a 24 vs 12 hour clock
- Paper sizes
- Units of measurement, such as English, Metric, or a combination of the two (In the UK, distances are measured in miles, but gas is sold by the liter, leaving a car’s fuel consumption to be measured in miles per liter!)