In today’s world, a product takes many shapes and forms. Unlike the past centuries, products were mostly tangible things people buy from stores. Today, a product can be software, visual assets, online games, and even NFTs.
Therefore, you might want to think extremely big when interpreting the word Product in this article, because it’s becoming more of an open-ended concept…
However, here we’re mostly referring to a software product because it’s the most on-demand of all.
What is product localization?
A broad process that includes translating, designing, testing, and engineering the product to fit a specific local audience, with the goal of ensuring optimal user experience.
What are the key benefits of product localization?
Transcending language barriers
Language is a big barrier to making your product accessible. Therefore, translation and localization come into place to eliminate that barrier.
While many American people believe that almost half the population speaks English:
- Only 27% of the world’s population speaks English, with almost 1500 million speakers according to Statista. Unless you’re targeting only English speakers, localizing it for at least one more major language can’t go wrong.
Taking UX to the next level
User experience is about asking questions like ‘Is the product easy to use?’, and ‘Is it familiar?’
Since localization tackles non-textual aspects like product design, it could go the extra mile in making the product more user-friendly at the hands of foreigners speaking another language.
This is mentioned in more depth in our article Software Localization Complete Guide
Which by effect…
Builds the trust of your audience
Localization is mostly taken by users as a sign of respect. This is exactly what you need to secure your business authenticity in the long run and keep those users satisfied. And that makes perfect sense because it shows that you researched their culture, their needs, and the trends in their region. You made an effort.
On the contrary, there are many products out there that don’t prioritize cultural localization but still expect the same results.
For example, localized customer support is known to be more likely to inspire people to purchase the product, according to this survey by CSA research.
And of course…it’s good for SEO
This is how people will find you online.
By including the local terminology you’re more likely to show up in local search results.
Let’s say you’re building a recruitment software. Your American audience has very well heard about you, but the ones in Saudi Arabia haven’t. Why? Because you’re not speaking the language of their search bar.
Relevant to this is: Digital Marketing Localization Benefits
Capture the intention of more customers (increase in customer base)
Logical enough, your product feels local; more people are going to be into it.
Localization is like rolling out the welcome mat for new customers. By speaking their language and understanding their culture, you’re showing them that your product is made just for them. And the more languages and regions you cover, the more you do this; the bigger your fanbase gets.
More Sales!
You’ve invested tons of money and time. It’s about time to sell, eh?
Be sure that the ROI for localization is BIG.
Localization makes your product feel familiar and trustworthy, which can seriously boost your sales. The more people who connect with what you’re offering, the more you’ll see those sales numbers climb.
The different approaches to product localization
Cultural Localization
Here, many things are tweaked. From visuals to content and copy, with the goal of resonating with the target local culture.
For example, if your product is targeting an Arab Muslim population, you might want to change the images to feature elements of the target culture, like traditional clothing, and colors that have positive implications, and avoid visuals or language that could be sensitive, or offensive.
A good example of the cultural localization of a product is Spotify.
Although recently it has been on and off in terms of user experience.
It could still be rewarded for its localization efforts. For example, Spotify creates several music charts for local artists depending on the audience.
It also celebrates their holidays and caters to their music taste.
Linguistic Localization
Simply, it’s the translation of textual elements. That could involve supporting text direction from LTR and RTL languages. It also involves the product content, including in-text images.
Technical Localization
This involves UI and Digital localization.
User Interface (UI) refers to what users see. On an Amazon webpage, UI represents all the menus and clickable icons.
UI elements include:
- Currency
- Units of measurements
- Date formats
- Text direction
- Text expansion and truncation
- Optimizing for desktop and mobile versions
- Supporting local character sets
How does product localization work?
Let’s get a quick overview of who is involved in the product localization process, what tools they use, and what a typical PL process looks like.
First of all, product localization is a very collaborative process that requires different team members with varying skill sets to work together.
Those could typically be:
UX Designers
They focus on creating a user experience that feels natural to the local audience.
They use tools like Sketch to design interfaces that are intuitive and culturally relevant.
UI Designers
Responsible for the visual aspects of the product. They adapt colors, icons, and layouts to align with local aesthetics. Tools such as Adobe XD and InVision are commonly used for UI design, allowing designers to prototype and refine visual elements that appeal to regional preferences.
Translators and Transcreators
While translators focus on accurately converting content from one language to another, transcreators go a step further, adapting the content to ensure it carries the same emotional impact as the original.
They often use translation management systems (TMS) like SDL Trados or memoQ, and computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools to maintain consistency and quality across languages.
Localization Specialists
These experts oversee the entire localization process, ensuring that all aspects—from language to regulatory compliance—are handled correctly.
They make use of many translation and localization tools to streamline the process and maintain its consistency, while also keeping other team members in loop.
The Typical Process of Product Localization
The localization process usually follows these steps:
Market Research
Before anything else, the team conducts thorough research to understand the target market’s cultural nuances, language, and consumer behavior.
Content Extraction and Translation
The content to be localized is extracted from the product, whether it’s text, images, or videos. Translators and transcreators then adapt this content for the local audience
Design Adaptation
UX and UI designers step in to adjust the product’s design if needed.
Things like text truncation and expansion are very likely to occur, so they collaborate with translators to fix that.
Integration and Testing
Once the content and design are localized, everything is integrated back into the product. The team then conducts thorough testing, using localization testing tools like BrowserStack or Applanga to ensure the product functions correctly in the local environment.
Final Review and Launch
After testing, the product undergoes a final review to catch any last-minute issues. Once everything is approved, the localized product is ready for launch in the target market. Voila!
Internationalization: Making your product ready for localization
If the product in question is software, then we need to talk about this big word… Internationalization.
Before diving into localization, it’s crucial to prepare your product through a process called internationalization (often abbreviated as i18n).
It’s basically like building a flexible base structure for the software to allow a smooth localization in any language in the future.
What Does Internationalization Involve?
- Flexible Design and Architecture
- Separation of Content from Source Code
- Using Unicode to Support for Multiple Character Sets: including non-Latin scripts like Arabic, Chinese, or Cyrillic.
- Creating an adaptable User Interface with responsive Layouts
- Including Language Selection Feature: This basically allows users to choose their desired language from a drop-down menu on the software/product.
- Ensuring it follows Legal and Regulatory Considerations in each country. In Europe, it will watch for GDPR.
