ry software product owner can benefit from enabling it to speak in as many languages as possible-except for few individual cases where the product is made solely to address a narrow audience, but generally speaking, localizing software is like clicking a new key in a door of business opportunities and revenue.
What is software localization, its processes, and how far can your business benefit from it? This, and more, we shall find out below:
What is software localization?
It’s the process of adapting a software product to the users from a specific locale or market, encompassing both language translation and visual adaptation.
It involves linguistic and non-linguistic aspects. The linguistic aspect is ‘translation’, and the non-linguistic ones involve the modification of product features, visuals, User interface, text alignment…etc, with the purpose of appealing to a local audience.
Read more: Localization Glossary
Why do you need software localization?
It depends on your objectives, but from wherever you look at it, localization is a package full of wins.
Increasing brand visibility
Localization is guaranteed to make you tap into new markets, and reach more audience. Many of whom could have been already waiting for your product to finally speak their language and be available in their region.
Increase in revenue and profit
After that, the next thing you can expect to happen is a boost in sales. If your product has tackled localization correctly, new audience are going to rush in to recognize, test, and eventually buy your software especially if it’s better than many of the local competitors. This in itself is a great competitive advantage.
Enhancing brand reputation
Primarily, at the core of localization lies better communication with users. You want your product to be known for its enhanced useability, communication, and familiarity with the target users. Keeping any eye on that will increase positive user experiences, which means better reviews and strong referrals, grounding your product’s good reputation in the market.
What are software localization processes?
What’s meant by processes here are the typical or most common steps taken in any software localization projects, this is different from the methodologies, which we will explore later in the article.
Internationalization
It’s the process of adapting the structure of the software in a way that makes it flexible enough to acquire more languages and localization capabilities.
It’s like crafting a fashion item that can adapt to different seasons, and fit different body shapes. Internationalizing the software means building it in a way that can fit future localization attempts without having to make drastic changes to the code.
Read more: Internationalization vs. localization
Read more: What is Internationalization?
Preparing resources
The team working on a software localization project should gather-not only text-but everything else that needs to be localized in the software: menus, system messages, guidelines, images, audio, vidoes…)
Culturally sensitive Localization
The main and most important step, where localization experts adapt all the collected resources to fit the culture of the target user. The content can never offend, nor trigger them.
Adapting the design (if needed)
If the application is initially built in English, but you want it to be localized to Chineses users, the design will probably go through some changes since both languages are different in matter of text direction, expansion, reduction, clutter…etc.
Quality Assurance and Rigorous Testing
Before launching the product, the team uses it to look for any inconsistencies, bugs, glitches, and might invite a group of target users to use it and give their feedback on it, before a soft launch.
Software localization best practices
Define what’s most important, and what’s least important
Obviously, not all resources have the same priority when it comes to localization, primary content needs to be localized prior to secondary ones or ones buried deep in the product.
For example, what should be taken care of first? Drop down menus, or system error messages?
It’s for you to decide, depending on your product and the project timeline.
Be Mindful of locale differences
English is not the same everywhere it’s used, not any of the most common languages like spanish, Indian, or chinese. Therefore, understanding the dialects, and different locales of the target users can get you the extra mile in your localization efforts.
Prioritize cultural sensitivity all the way
You might be surprised, but something as minor as a color gradient can make a big difference. You want to give your users a product that speaks to them, understands their needs, and delivers that in the smoothest way possible. That necessitates being mindful of anything that might have a negative connnotation in their target culture.
It could be a color, a flag, unfamiliar visuals, strange body language, irrelevant content.
If you are targeting a Muslim country, you might want to replace the existing pictures with ones that includes Muslim men and women dressed in their traditional clothes, or localize new features for them like Muslim celebrations feature, or system messages that has one or two words in their dialect
Words like Salam, instead of Hi or Hello can make them more engaged.
Keep the element of text length in mind
Different languages can expand or contract text, so plan for layout flexibility from the start.
Separate resource files & Use Placeholders
If you are translating for multiple languages, the trick is to keep everything that needs translation in separate files. Moreover, you might want to use placeholders in the code, instead of hard coding text. This is important for translators to understand the context of whatever they are trying to translate and how it appears on the software.
Use a style guide
Maintaining consistency is essential. One way to do that is to decide on a style guide for all the team members working on the project, agreeing on the tone of the language, register, style, jargon, and much more.
Examples of Companies that nailed software localization
Microsoft
Aside from the recent global outage that’s taking the news by storm, it goes without saying that Microsoft has an impeccable localization strategy; not only does it support an extensive number of languages, it also has many cool features like its spell-check feature that considers the local language’s nuances. It is also compatible with local keyboards, date formats, and legal requirements.
Netflix
As the world’s larget streaming service, Netflix offers a localized experience. The user account located in Spain will suggest different visuals and films quite different from one located in the US or Egypt.
Moreover, it has various dubbing and subtitling languages that allows users to watch their desired shows without language ever being a barrier.
Spotify
A music streaming service available in 180+ countries across the whole world. They are big on image localization, and content adaptation. For example, as an American user, it will create playlists for you and suggest songs that are most likely to resonate with your taste and with what other Americans are listening to. This experience will change drastically for users from another country.
The company’s flagship products, such as Google Search, Google Maps, and Gmail, are available worldwide, making it not just an excellent example of software localization, but of software globalization. It adapts to a users location, language, earch preferences, cultural norms, and adjusts the search results accordingly.
Localization in various software development methodologies
Continuous
This method is a favorite to many because it allows you to keep the content of the software updated in multiple languages, syncing throughout the development process. It’s an extension of Agile principles and aims to streamline the localization process, ensuring that software is consistently available in various languages as it evolves.
Agile
It’s used by major software companies like Google and Facebook. Agile is a popular approach because it focuses on delivering small updates instead of large ones, therefore it’s very adaptable to the localization process and integrates seamlessly into the product development.
Waterfall
Unlike these two methods, waterfall works quite differently. It’s linear, and is less likely to be used in a changing sotware because its approach is to finish updates in phases. It’s a structured method than not always works for dynamic projects because of its limitations, which is quite in contrast to its name!
How Fast Trans can help with Localizing your software?
Fast Trans covers an array of localization services, among which is Software Localization. Our team are your trusted partners in the Middle East, especially if you are a foreign business that’s expanding in the region for the first time. We know what it takes to win the hearts of your target user in a new environment. That’s because our team are industry experts who have extensively worked with software localization for years, they know all the ins and outs of your industry.
Get your quote here, or reach out to us to our team who are available around the clock for you.
