Releasing new software simultaneously into the global market is a challenge faced by many organizations. Many processes need to be considered in order to ensure that software release deadlines are met. One of the key activities required to develop software for global markets is localization.
What is software localization?
Software localization is the process of adapting a software product to the linguistic, cultural and technical requirements of a target market. This process is labour-intensive and often requires a significant amount of time from the development teams.
International users
International users of computer software have come to expect their software to “talk” to them in their own language. This is not only a matter of convenience, but a matter of productivity. Users who understand a product fully will be more skilled in handling it and will avoid mistakes. So they will prefer applications in their language and adapted to their cultural environment.
How does software localization work?
A software product that has been localized properly has the look and feel of a product originally written and designed for the target market. Here are just a number of points that have to be considered, as well as the language, in order to effectively localize a software product or website: measuring units, number formats, address formats, time and date formats (long and short), paper sizes, fonts, default font selection, case differences, character sets, sorting, word separation and hyphenation, local regulations, copyright issues, data protection, payment methods, currency conversion, taxes.
The standard localization process includes the following basic steps:
- Analysis of the material received and evaluation of the tools and resources required for localization
- Cultural, technical and linguistic assessment
- Creation and maintenance of terminology glossaries
- Translation to the target language
- Adaptation of the user interface, including resizing of forms and dialogs, as required
- Localization of graphics, scripts or other media containing visible text, symbols, etc.
- Compilation and build of the localized files for testing
- Linguistic and functional quality assurance
- Project delivery
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