How does the 27 character wide search box recommended length apply to Asian languages and Russian?
I work for a multinational company. We have a global site, and individual country sites. I am trying to set a width for the search box that will accommodate all of our sites and languages. We've got Japanese, Taiwanese, Thai, Chinese, Korean, and Russian to contend with, as well as several European languages.
Based on this article by NNG:
Search is an important part of any big website. When users want to search, they typically scan the homepage looking for "the little box where I can type," so your search should be a box. [Make your search box at least 25 characters wide,] so it can accommodate multiple words without obscuring parts of the user's query.
(Update: Based on more recent findings, my recommendation is now to make the search box 27 characters wide. This and other new guidelines are covered in our course on Top Web UX Design Guidelines at the annual UX Conference).
Does anyone know if this 27 character width recommendation is global, or are there different width suggestions for languages that don't use Roman lettering?