Occasionally I feel inspired to write articles and reports on usability and user experience design, amongst others for CHI Nederland. Unfortunately, my written Dutch language skills are far from perfect, but the editor kindly agreed for me to write my contributions in English, even though the CHI NL site is almost entirely in Dutch.
It seems this fact did not sit well with some supporters of the 'Dutch language police', as conveyed by a commentary from June 24 on the DdUX site, including a link to an article by Stichting Nederlands, who condemns the use of English and sees it as a major threat to Dutch culture and history. This xenophobic paranoia is reminiscent of a campaign by Dutch politician Rita Verdonk, who wanted to ban all Dutch residents from speaking foreign languages on public streets in NL. I would expect to encounter such nationalistic tendencies in the hardworking traditionalist neighborhoods of Rotterdam, but not among an academic and internationally well connected society!
p.s Maybe the commentator should suggest to rename DdUX ("Design for Digital User eXperience") to OdGE ("Ontwerp voor Digitaale Gebruikers Ervaringen")?
p.p.s. Luckily so far nobody seems to consider my foreign genes as a threat for future Dutch generations ... or maybe that's just the paranoia of my German upbringing ... ;-)
p.p.p.s. Not having informed me about their public critique of my report, I wonder if DdUX might at least have the courtesy to offer some apologies?
No comments:
Post a Comment