Imagine launching an app with tons of hype, only for it to flop because it missed the mark with local users. From irrelevant content, and foreign words, to confusing translations, localization mistakes can get messy if not done properly.
In this article, we’ll spotlight common mistakes in SaaS localization and give you an idea of how to avoid them.
Ready to make your app a global hit? Here are 7 mistakes to avoid:
1- Lack of target market research
If you’re thinking of localizing your software, your team must have at least to some extent researched the target audience. However, lack of research refers to missing out on subtle but important things that can make a lot of difference.
- Do you holistically understand what design aesthetics your audience prefers?
- Which communication styles appeal to them most?
- What about tackling/or staying away from current hot (political, religious, social, or economic) topics where they’re located?
For example, your American audience could prefer a friendly and informal communication style, while maybe the Japanese audience appreciates formality, mixed with precision.
Read more: The Complete Guide to SaaS Localization
2- NOT Internationalizing from the start
If the software is not built with localization in mind, a.k.a, internationalized then many user interface problems can arise:
- The text is not aligned with the layout and looks messy or overflowing
- Text expansion
- Misaligned layout due to different text direction (RTL versus LTR languages)
- Text truncation due to lack of space
- Lack of localization of currencies, measurements, dates, numbers…etc.
Read more: What is Internationalization?
3- Hardcoding
Simply, this is when the text is embedded into the code of the software, making it hard to extract with every localization process. This might result in:
- Time-consuming manual extraction of source text
- Spending more time on gathering resources
The solution? Store everything that needs to be translated in separate files, not embedding them in the code, for an easy and smooth extraction process. Such resource files can be created in different formats like JSON, YAML, PO, and XLIFF/XML which are the most common ones, but it really depends on the project framework.
Read more: What is Software Internationalization?
4- Thinking it’s a one-time task
What? Do I have to spend money on localization forever?
Not exactly, but it’s counterproductive if you expect the software to rock the market with one localization attempt you did back in 2018.
Because the language changes, the market too, the audience, and their context, making localization a continuous process to keep up with all the changing variables.
You certainly don’t want the software to have content that is no longer relevant, or outdated language that can confuse the user or impact their experience, who is always demanding and comparing your product to plenty of others on the market.
5- Not Specifying the Exact Locale
Localization is not translation, this means you need to decide on a specific locale to tackle, which is a smaller scale than one big language.
When translating, you can say the software is available in French, and that will do.
But, when localizing, which French do you mean? France French, Canadian French, even Algerian French?
For example, “settings” is translated to “paramètres” in French (France), while “réglages” is preferred in Canadian French.
6- Forgetting different translation lengths
This is relevant to mistake number (2) because not keeping an eye on text length can lead to changes to the user interface. Text expansion could be slight with some languages if they’re close to each other. However, imagine translating from English to German, things can get a little lengthy due to the nature of the German language. The opposite could happen too with other languages.
Letting this go out of hand can result in a huge mess:
- Overlapping text
- Text expanding outside the interface
7- Not Including All Touchpoints
Users interact and experiment with your product in many ways throughout their journey. Touch points include onboarding materials, compliance documents, and promotional content, One of the main touchpoints is your website because it’s where they should get all their questions answered. It should have important sections like FAQs, Help Centre articles, and user manuals localized.
Read more: 11 Golden Steps for Website Localization
How Fast Trans overcome SaaS localization challenges
Our team comprises industry experts who have worked extensively with software translation and localization, meaning, that they probably have seen the above mistakes recurring over and over with clients, to the point that they not only avoid them completely but also provide a seamless localization solution that you can trust blindly to boost your sales!
Aside from market experience, we provide our translators with all available translation and localization tools to run projects smoothly. The could range from utilizing glossaries, and translation memories to style guides to ensure consistency throughout the process.
If you’re curious about other SaaS localization benefits we offer, check our localization services page.
