1. Phillip Rowland-Seymour The Annie E. Casey Foundation September 2011
Communicating With A Multilingual Public: Snapshot of Federal Agency Websites and Hotlines
Phillip Rowland-Seymour
The Annie E. Casey Foundation
September 2011

2. Why?
The Annie E. Casey Foundation is a private charitable organization dedicated to helping build better futures for disadvantaged children in the United States.
As you’ve heard from this morning’s speakers, The Annie E. Casey Foundation is a private charitable organization dedicated to helping build better futures for disadvantaged children. We do this by supporting children and families in a multigenerational approach to our work. So, language access is near and dear to us. Because of this, we asked the question, how would our LEP families experience Federal agency websites and hotlines when they need to access necessary services?

3. Background
AG February 17, 2011 Memo: Renewed commitment to Language Access obligations under Executive Order
8 action items
Language Access Working Group
Evaluate/update current response to LEP needs
Establish schedule to periodically evaluate update LEP needs
Ensure that staff can identify LEP points of contact and provide meaningful assistance at those points
Notify the public of your LEP policies, plans, and procedures (in ways that will reach LEP communities they serve)
Determining extent to which non-English proficiency is a useful hiring criteria
Collaborate with other agencies on shared translated written resources
Draft recipient guidance for agencies that provide federal financial assistance
This question goes back to Executive Order as well as one of the action items on Attorney General Holder’s February 17, 2011 renewed commitment memo. He didn’t ask for agencies to implement their LEP plans just yet, just to notify the public of their plans in a way that will reach the LEP communities.

4. Notify the public…
“Notify the public, through mechanisms that will reach the LEP communities you serve, of your LEP policies, plans, and procedures, and LEP access-related developments. Provide a link to materials posted on your website to Federal Coordination and Compliance Section so that it can be posted on LEP.gov.”
As it relates to that specific action item, for a great number of Federal Agencies, websites and hotlines are a clear place to alert the public of your LEP policies, plans, and procedures…

5. Websites Survey of 90 agencies’ websites, looking for:
Plain language statement
Social media buttons
Mirror site
GobiernoUSA.gov
Translate the page
So, we conducted a survey of 90 federal agencies’ websites in an attempt to answer several questions about their homepages:
Do they have a Plain language statement – acknowledging the Plain Writing Act of 2010, which required federal agencies to put all new and revised documents into plain language.
Do they have social media buttons – twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Del.icio.us, Youtube, etc.
Do they provide a translated mirror site in Spanish? Any other foreign language?
Is there a link to GobiernoUSA.gov, the mirror site of usa.gov, which gives a person access to searchable information from federal, state, and local government documents.
Can you translate the page? Machine translation tools like “Google Translate” can be used to translate all or some of information from a website. It should be noted that this is not a recommended strategy especially because you don’t know exactly what you are going to get, but we looked to see who uses it and how.
Then we asked further questions about:
ease of access to a translated site and/or text;
Location -- where on the main page is the translation tool/link;
how many languages site or text is translated into;
in many cases, if there isn’t a translated site, are there at least agency specific vital documents that are available to LEP clients?

6. Languages Spanish Chinese Vietnamese French/Haitian Creole
Hindi (and related)
Korean
In general, we looked for evidence of the 6 most commonly found non-English languages spoken in households throughout the United States (according to results of the 2009 American Community Survey). Those languages are Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, French, Haitian/Creole, Hindi (and related languages), and Korean.

7. Website findings Almost 15% have a mirror site available in Spanish.
Approximately 11% link to GobiernoUSA.gov
Almost 6% use Google Translate on their homepage.
1/3 of the agencies provide links to agency-specific translated documents on their webpage.
And our findings were pretty interesting and telling.
Almost 15% (13 agencies) have a mirror site available in Spanish.
Approximately 11% (10 agencies) provide easily accessible links from their homepage to GobiernoUSA.gov
A little over 5.5% (5 agencies) allow opportunities to translate their web text through a button for Google Translate on their homepage.
1/3 of the agencies (30, total) provide links to agency-specific translated documents on their webpage. These were sometimes a bit more difficult to find. Sometimes they were in the mirror site, sometimes they could only be found using various “search strings” in the search box of their website.

8. Website findings
Links to Spanish resources were usually labeled “Spanish”.
Only 1 agency has mirror sites in more than just Spanish.
8 agencies provided translated text/documents in more than just Spanish.
29 agencies had easily identifiable “Plain Language” statements and 54 have social media buttons.
A couple other findings of note were that:
Most of the non-English resources were available only in Spanish and not really in the other languages. Links to these resources were usually labeled “Spanish” (as opposed to “Español”).
Only 1 agency has mirror sites in more than just Spanish.
8 agencies provided translated text/documents in more than just Spanish.
29 agencies had easily identifiable “Plain Language” statements and 54 have social media buttons. In our estimation, this represented a call for information to be provided easily as well as an opportunity for reaching more people in other languages.
It’s particularly noteworthy that for agencies websites where issues of immigrants and refugees are central, over 90% of them had information available only in English.

9. Hotlines Survey of 90 agencies’ hotlines, looking for:
Automated or live?
Languages available?
Prompts for non-English languages at the beginning or end of announcement
We wanted to know whether these hotlines would lead us to a live operator or not. We wanted to know what languages were available. We wanted to know if we had to go through a series of prompts in order to get to a language that our families might need.

10. Hotline findings
50% automated lines had another language as an option 4 live hotlines were accessible in Spanish
Two of the striking things that came out of the look at hotlines is that 50% of the automated lines had another language as an option.
4 live hotlines and operators were able to transfer us to someone who could help us in another language.
Again, there is a lot of good work being done, but these examples highlight that there is still a lot of good work to do.

11. Top 10 Best Practices for Multilingual Websites
So these findings are not necessarily surprising but are somewhat sobering. The great news is that there are opportunities to make significant progress in creating and implementing your LAPs.
As you do so, please keep in mind that our websites help us create a unified public face of the federal government that is trusted, easy to access, and easy to use for our public, whether they are proficient in English or not.
As we go about creating this trusted, accessible, user friendly public face, GobiernoUSA.gov and the Federal Multilingual Websites Committee have identified a list of 10 Best Practices for creating and maintaining multilingual websites. What follows is a brief description of these practices and some places where we thought these suggestions were nicely executed.

12. Language
Online communications must address the language preferences of users.
The use of machine or automatic translations is strongly discouraged.
The first is that online communications must address the language preferences of users.
It’s easy to suggest downloading a web browser that translates or use an automatic translation tool, but solely relying on their use is strongly discouraged even if a disclaimer is added. From a legal perspective, you don’t know what you will get and how that will effect the services you provide.

13. If we look at a website like Amtrack, here they offer a mirror site in French… as well as German, English and Spanish.

14. Culture
Regardless of language used, the online experience must be culturally relevant to the audience.
The second is an acknowledgement that regardless of language used, the online experience must be culturally relevant to the audience.

15. Using the example of GobiernoUSA. gov and its English counterpart USA
Using the example of GobiernoUSA.gov and its English counterpart USA.gov – they have the same structure, look, and feel. The Spanish site offers features that potentially resonate with the Spanish speaking community:
Content
Images
Color scheme

16. Access
Enable users to find your multilingual website via prominent access on the English site.
The third is that your site should enable users to find your multilingual website via prominent access on the English site.

17. Access to multilingual websites should be made available on the global navigation on the top right of every English page.
The Federal Trade Commission provides the "En español" link as part of their global navigation on their English site.

18. Use a stand-alone, dedicated URL.
URL Strategy
Use a stand-alone, dedicated URL.
Another best practice is to use a stand-alone, dedicated URL for marketing and search engine optimization purposes. That URL would then re-direct to a language-appropriate .gov website.

19. The Social Security Administration uses http://www. segurosocial
The Social Security Administration uses to market and drive traffic to their Spanish language site.

20. Comparability and Maintenance
Comparable user experience to your English site.
Ensure that your multilingual website provides a comparable user experience to your English site with regular updates and maintenance to ensure that your multilingual website remains comparable to the English site.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provide a comparable experience on the English and Spanish sites through consistent maintenance of site content and experience.

21. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provide a comparable experience on the English and Spanish sites through consistent maintenance of site content and experience.

23. Manage Users' expectations…
by letting your users know when they are going to navigate to an area of a different language.
Manage user expectations by providing notice when a user is going to
goto an English-only area document or part of the website,
A different website, or
Of if they need special software to view an application.

24. EPA.gov's Spanish site denotes English-only content by putting "en Inglés" next to links only available in English.

25. Toggle
Enable users to toggle between comparable content or features on the English and multilingual websites if available.
Enable users to toggle between comparable content or features on the English and multilingual websites if available.
Users on MedlinePlus and MedlinePlus en español can go back and forth between the English and Spanish sites on a page-by-page basis without having to go through the home page.

26. Whether it’s arthritis or diabetes, you can obtain the information in multiple languages.
Here we have a page on arthritis in Spanish, but the same information and same page is also available in English.

27. And here we have a page on diabetes in English that is also available in Spanish.

28. Online Features and Functionality
Provide interactive features and functionality on multilingual websites.
Provide interactive features and functionality on multilingual websites.

29. In the case of Amtrak, you can order an entire ticket with confirmation, etc. The same service that you would get if you operated solely in English.

30. Integrated Operations and Marketing
Integrate your multilingual website initiatives into your overall online-offline strategy.
Integrate your multilingual website initiatives with internal infrastructure and external consumer touch points, and into your overall online-offline strategy.
Phone in other languages
and web support in other languages
PSAs and marketing materials also available in other languages.

31. The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division offers
The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division offers .pdf versions of information sheets and flyers on their website.

32. Online Marketing
Develop and execute a targeted multilingual online marketing program.
The final, recommendation is to develop and execute a targeted multilingual online marketing program, including social media, and track results.
Some agencies have dedicated online outreach for their multilingual clients, of which many are using social media tools to reach out to LEPs. Facebook groups, twitter accounts, etc, that target LEP are another resource which can be used to reach them.

33. Conclusions
There is still work to be done. There are many resources available.
The conclusions are pretty simple. There is still much to be done, but there are also a lot of resources and models available to do it. Some excellent websites are available to use as both:
Exemplary implementation of one’s LEP plan. They are both works in progress as well as final products.
To show you how to how to achieve success in creating and maintaining a multilingual website that meets the needs of your clients who are also the populations that are served by The Annie E. Casey Foundation.
As related to the exemplary sites, one thing that struck me was that many of the sites highlighted by GobiernoUSA.gov and the Federal Multilingual Websites Committee are websites that our Annie E. Casey scan picked up as well. It shows that those who do it well, do it very well and should be commended.
Thank you