Metro tries to be accessible to visitors from around the world. But some riders found they needed to speak Korean to make sense of Metro’s website on Wednesday.
The agency’s site, www.wmata.com, automatically defaulted to http://ko.wmata.com for some users Wednesday morning, putting all text into Korean lettering. It happened to people using various browsers for several hours, then apparently disappeared hours later. Perhaps it was a subtle sign of support for a U.S. trade agreement with South Korea that was expected to be approved on Wednesday?
The snag highlighted some problems with Metro’s site. In May, Metro rolled out new and improved translations for its website. But the site doesn’t list English as an option on its pulldown menu of language options, so users in one language can’t easily switch back to English.
Furthermore, the names of the languages also have been translated into the language of the page, rather than the language they are offering. So someone stuck on a Korean page — yet not able to read the language — would have to click through multiple options to find a language they could understand. French? Spanish? Vietnamese?
Metro didn’t seem too concerned with the linguistic web issue after dealing with a meltdown of the Orange Line Tuesday evening, then handling more delays the next morning with a major switch problem, on top of the usual hassles of running a transit system with a $2.6 billion budget.
“We are unable to replicate this problem and do not believe it is widespread,” Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said.
Interestingly, South Korea does have an impressive subway system of its own in Seoul. And, yes, English is shown as an option on its webpage, written in English. And most signs inside the subway system are apparently in Korean and English. Take that for accessibility.
