Above: The billingual homepage of Relgioscope, with English and French columns taking content from the various subsections of the website. The top navigation bar offers convenient access to a variety of information in French and English, and a search box with a link to a bilingual Advanced Search page.
Launched in January 2002, Religioscope is a independent, non-sectarian website about religions in today's world, offering news and analysis of current developments and trends, with a historical perspective. Religioscope strives to offer its readers keys for a better understanding of the role and place of different religions.
The founder and chief editor of Religioscope is Jean-François Mayer, born in Switzerland in 1957. J.-F. Mayer received his doctoral degree in history in 1984 from the University of Lyon, France. Mayer is the author of several books and many articles on different aspects of religion in today's world. He is currently working as a lecturer in religious studies at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and as a consultant in international affairs.
The site was redesigned by nigelparry.net in 2004. Consultant Ken Harper developed a new logo for the site, emphasising the global nature of coverage, focus, and audience of the site.
A bilingual website in French and English, Religioscope posed a number of challenges to find ways for the two separate content streams to interact seemlessly.
Above: Previous and Next links on French templates are given in French (see shaded detail).
The homepage offers two columns that collect news from the various subsections of both the main language streams of the site. Clicking on English or Français will take you to the homepage of that language.
Above: The French homepage of Religioscope.
Above: An article level page in the French section of Religioscope.
Common site sections accessed by visitors, such as the Advanced Search page and the Syndication page, are rendered in both languages.
Above: The billingual splash screen of Religioscope's syndication feature.
Religioscope is on a content management system, allowing the client to easily update the site in-house.
