ESC Portal Topic Pages display content according to user language and other related issues

[Leri Andrews]

Hello!  We have implemented an OOTB ESC portal in 16 languages. Some markets have chosen to translate their articles and catalog forms e.g. Sweden, but others only have their content in their local language e.g. Japanese.  When users enter the portal for the first time, they have a guided tour that tries to alert them to the profile page where they can amend their language but most people close that down without reading it and just continue in the default system language which is English. There is a campaign banner with a button to the profile page but this is not being clicked.

My issues:

1. AI search assumes they are searching in English but they often type in another language and get no results

2. The topic pages only show content in English

3. The recommended for you and most popular widgets only display English content (I don't know if this is because it's looking at similar users or because it's only showing content in the users profile language)

4. These users get system notifications and workspace UI in English too.

If the user changed their profile language to Swedish they could search using both English and Swedish, they'd see English and Swedish items in the topic pages and they get Swedish recommended and popular content.  In short, it's a much better experience and would stop so many calls to the helpdesk.  The downside is that some of the OOTB translations are pretty bad and the UI (if they're also agents) is therefore much worse.

I see several possible routes to fix this 

1. Make search work in all languages. I have been told this is a VERY BAD IDEA

2. Email everyone with language = English (system) and tell them to make a decision. This feels very silly in 2024

3. Change all users in Japan to have Japanese as the default language - but what do I do for Canada and Switzerland....? This data isn't fed from any other system to give me a clue.

4. Customise (presumably) portal widgets to show all content in all languages - but how will people cope with seeing SO MUCH STUFF in languages they don't speak?

5. Customise the analytics consent pop-up on entering the portal forcing the user to make a decision on their language or stay on default

6. Customise a second pop-up forcing the user to make a decision on their language

Would welcome any suggestions, observations, commiserations.