reactjs / reactjs/react.dev

Bad UX when swithcing languages

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JavaScript
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Description

Hi, I just wanted to share with you the problematic workflow I encounter:

  • I access React docs, eg to read about ErrorBoundaries
  • I get redirected to the French version automatically
  • However, the translation of technical conept is actually more confusing than helpful when you are used to work in English. For instance "Périmètres d'erreur": it's nice to have an intelligible French translation of course, but "Perimètre" and "Boundary" have nothing in common and might be actually hard to find more documentations in English afterward. Another use case: I want to share this piece of docs to React beginner on Discord or elsewhere so I need the English version
  • I switch to English via the locale switcher
  • I get redirected to the home page :(
  • I have trouble finding the page back since the URL is also translated

This workflow could be vastly improved by simply keeping the current page when we switch languages

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by tracing the documentation site's locale switcher and how it handles translated URLs. Reproduce the workflow by opening a page such as Error Boundaries, switching from French to English, and checking whether the equivalent English page is preserved instead of returning home.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript, react
Domain
documentation, internationalization, localization, web-dev
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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