In this article, we want to give you an overview of the most important things to consider if you are thinking about including localization in your next IT project. We hope that you find the information below helpful.

The process: Doing things in the right order

There is a tried and tested order in which the content needs to be translated. It is the order followed by the main IT companies and it is the fruit of decades of seeing what works and what doesn’t work.

Step 1 – Software Translation (or UI translation)

Start with the software, always start with the software translation. It will save you inconsistencies with the support material – such as manuals, tutorials, and help articles -, last-minute fixes, and headaches (as if software development didn’t have enough headaches as it is).

Once you have a stable version or at the very least a UI freeze you can send the software strings for translation.

Translating the UI strings first allows us to create a glossary of UI terms, this will help maintain consistency between the UI and all the support material.

This also gives the development team the opportunity to test the new translated UI and see how the software is holding up and check if fixes are needed. We will discuss some common issues at the very end of this article.

Step 2 – User Manuals

The second step is the Manuals. Since we started with the translation of the Software, we now have a strong Glossary of UI terms that will help us maintain total consistency between the UI and the Manuals.

Consistency is important since it is what will ensure that your users will find what is on the Manual on the actual UI and prevent them from getting lost trying to find a menu item that has a different name.

For example in English imagine if your software instructs the user to use the Cut feature, but in the UI it is actually called Crop. This type of inconsistency makes the manual hard to follow and defeats its main purpose as a reference for the users.

Step 3 – Help Files – Online Help

This part is pretty straightforward on the linguistic side since all the terminology should be already well established from previous steps.

The one difference is how the Help files are structured. If we are dealing with the old format of help, then these files are a collection of files that are translated, compiled into a Help file, and then tested by our team to make sure that everything works.

If on the other hand, we are dealing with Online Format, this step will be like translating a collection of webpages.

Step 4 – Tutorials

This step is optional, but it definitely helps you foster user adoption of your software. You can create short videos or interactive tutorials to help your users (or would-be users) understand how to perform key tasks.

We can support you with either Subtitling, for a simpler and cost-effective solution,  or with Voiceover for a more complete localization.

Step 5 – Patch Notes

It is always good to keep your users updated and engaged with your software.

Normally patch notes are relatively short on the text so it doesn’t cost that much to keep everybody up to date on what’s new and what has been fixed.

Step X -: Marketing Material

Marketing material can be translated at any point in the process.

You can translate it during development to drum up interest for your product, before release to increase your sales, or periodically after release to share news and offers.

Tips and Tricks

Character Encoding

An important aspect of software translation is how the characters are going to be displayed. Your software will be displaying text in languages with special characters, or languages that have a completely different set of characters (e.g. Chinese).

In other words, what worked for English isn’t necessarily going to work now.

As a rule of thumb, we recommend you to use UTF-8 or UTF-16, as it allows you to display almost all languages.

You can find a full list of the languages supported here: https://www.unicode.org/standard/supported.html

Character length and the UI

Besides character encoding, the length of the text that can be displayed in a UI item is one of the main challenges of UI strings translations.

This is especially important for software that is used on Mobile Phone Apps, Heavy Machinery, medical devices, or any device that isn’t a Mac or a PC.

If you want to tackle the issue early on, try to perform a Mock Translation (i.e. a simulated translation): import a random set of characters that is 30%-50% longer than your existing text to your current UI. This is a good opportunity to test compatibility with the new charset

After doing the Mock Translation please check for the following possible issues:

• Does it truncate text?
• Does it reduce the font?
• Does the text scroll out of the screen?
• Are special characters displayed correctly?

See how your software behaves and inform the translation team of any text size limitation.

Finally, please save some time after translation for testing the UI. If needed you can send back a list of strings to be shortened along with the maximum string length.

Microsoft’s Glossaries

Microsoft has been a big player in the Software industry for many decades now, so it is of little surprise that they have humongous glossaries with thousands of UI terms translated to hundreds of languages.

What may surprise you though, is that they have been nice enough to make their glossaries public and available. You can access them following this link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/language

When in doubt about how to translate a UI string, it is always a good practice to check the glossaries of Microsoft since their translations have already been read (and subconsciously, accepted) by millions of users.

If you are ready to tackle new markers and want your software to be used around the world, you need the right partner for your software translation.

At Australis Localization, we stay with you every step of the way. Contact us at production@australis-localization.com to discuss how we can help you launch your software to the World.

“Technical Translations” is a catch-all term that encompasses projects related to machinery, industry or technology. The exact subject matter can vary, but the projects share the same set of characteristics that make them especially challenging.

We will explain some key points about how to handle this type of project properly:

• All industries have their specific terminology, it is important to locate good sources of industry-specific references before the project starts. The best option will always be to refer to customer-approved previous translations, but if that is not available then Scientific or industry related publications or glossaries from industry associations will be a good starting point.
• The style should always strive to be direct and the meaning of the words should be unambiguous. There is no room for purple prose or unnecessary flourish that may obscure the meaning of the sentences.
• The content is aimed at people with technical knowledge on the subject matter, there is rarely a need to adapt the content to make it accessible to a more general audience.
• Terminology consistency is KEY, and every single source term needs to be represented by a single translated term.
  • For this reason, it is critical to keep both the TM and the Glossary up to date and follow them strictly.
  • Whenever possible, a single editor should work on the whole project to prevent divergence on the terminology. If more than one editor is needed (because the client needs a short TAT) there should be constant communication between Editors and a single version of the TM should be shared and maintained.

At Australis Localization, we have Technical translation experts with wide experience in areas such as Manufacturing, Engineering, Automotive, Construction, High-Tech, Automation/Robotics, among others.

Give us the chance to help you with your next Technical Translation project. We have the knowledge. We’re ready.

For everything to run easily, guarantee quality and reduce costs
at Australis, we systematically apply our Linguistic Engineering process.

Within our process, the first stage is preparation, which is worthwhile because it avoids inconsistencies that are magnified when translating to each new language. We work by your side to guarantee the complete preparation of your content, before starting the translation, localization, and proofreading of your material. In the following stages, we detect the previously translated content to save time, money and also document it in the Style & Preferences guide of your company.

We’ll help guiding you throughout the whole process. From the revision of the content in the original language, we can guide you to standardize the terminology and measurement systems for your clients’. We’ll take into account the needs of all areas in your company such as production, marketing, sales, customer service, etc. to settle and define together the descriptions of your products or services that are consistent in all the languages you need.

At Australis, our Linguistic Engineering process ensures that your original content is consistent in all languages.

It is likely that your translation work is highly specialized and our contribution of value consists precisely in guaranteeing an optimal localization for each language. It doesn’t matter if you need something simple like a multilingual website or a complex work that requires different projects such as sales materials, user manuals, online help guides, website and social networks, contracts, warranty policies, etc. what’s important is that we apply our Linguistic Engineering process to each project regardless of its scale.

If you have more questions or want to know how we can apply our Linguistic Engineering process to your translation and localization needs, please contact one of our expert collaborators.

Now our goal is to translate the interface of these gadgets and smart clothes into the local language of the consumer countries. For all technology products, language localization is the key to achieve success in particular markets.

“Our great challenge is to keep up with the dizzying speed of technology that now tends to use user interfaces based on spoken rather than written commands”.

Localization involves much more than just translating the texts into the terminology of another language. In fact, it takes into account the user’s adjustable preferences, the variable options and the way the user uses and interacts with the technology. It is still a developing technology that provides many adjustments and customization for particular markets, which for example prefer a female voice as a reflection of artificial intelligence that is there to help, instead of a male voice representing authority and command. There is also the consideration that in Latin American and North American markets the greetings and friendly treatment of the interface, even if programmed, is very well received, while in certain markets they prefer a direct interaction without any additions. Eastern markets like China prefer to interact with voice commands and eliminate all written interface.

Whatever the location needs of your technology company, our job is to make your products fully accessible to the particular markets you want to reach. Do not hesitate to contact us to discuss your doubts and talk about the success of your company.