Volkswagen : Labelling lapses

Non-descriptive links lead to confusion all round.

The Site

Volkswagen, the giant Germany-based automotive group, runs into translation and accessibility problems with some of its link labels.

Volkswagen’s international group website has seven main sections, each with its own introduction page. Three – Brands and Companies, Human Resources and Press – use this to highlight content with a headline and summary followed by a link to the featured page. On the German-language version of the site the link is labelled ‘Noch mehr’, literally ‘yet more’; this is translated on the English version as ‘Many much more’.

On the Sustainability and Responsibility introduction page a right-hand link for CR Reporting Awards is labelled ‘More’ / ‘Mehr’; on The Group page, a link to the other group websites index is labelled ‘More’ / ‘Zur Übersicht’.

The Takeaway

Volkswagen’s lingual lapses in the precision and consistency of its labelling are surprising in a company renowned for and trading on its mastery on the manufacturing side of quality assurance. The nonsensical translation of Noch mehr is undermining of its positioning as a global player as well as being only one of three labels employed to indicate the same thing to users of the German-language site.

While these are problems of execution, they also expose a more fundamental issue in relation to labelling. Accessibility best practice guidelines warn against the use of ‘more’ as link text, because it lacks descriptive value of content. In this instance, following the guideline would not only meet accessibility standards, it would also eliminate the variations and mistranslations by extending the precision of more-descriptive labelling to all users – itself a persuasive benefit of accessibility testing for more than compliance.

First published on 28 May, 2009