UA Colleagues:
We spend a lot of time thinking about universal acceptance of email addresses and URLs. We tend to assume that email addresses and URLs are important. But for a lot of information technology users, they aren't. Those users learned to use IT via mobile, rather than via desktop computers. They use all-embracing messaging apps like WeChat, or walled garden social media sites where you find what you want by search. In these environments, email addresses and URLs just don't matter as much as they do in longer-established, and Anglo-centric, IT cultures.
Here are an interesting blog post and an interesting news article on the topic:
In China, email addresses are irrelevant • July 28, 2020 by John Yunker, blog post
<https://globalbydesign.com/2020/07/28/in-china-email-addresses-are-irrelevant/>Why email loses out to popular apps in China • 9th July 2020 by Lu-Hai Liang, BBC
<https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200707-why-email-loses-out-to-popular-apps-in-china>
I think a useful response to this might be to keep asking ourselves, how do people communicate in preference to emails? How do people find things in preference to typing in URLs? Then investigating those methods for Universal Acceptance as well.
'In Anglo-centric countries such as the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, email retains the etiquette of an analogue age. The “Dear X” greetings and formal sign-offs – “Best regards” – and so on, reveal vestigial ties to letter writing.'
As I do in this email message. Best regards,
—Jim DeLaHunt, software engineer, Vancouver, Canada
-- . --Jim DeLaHunt, jdlh@jdlh.com http://blog.jdlh.com/ (http://jdlh.com/) multilingual websites consultant 355-1027 Davie St, Vancouver BC V6E 4L2, Canada Canada mobile +1-604-376-8953