The Microsoft internationalization standard has changed expectations in the software market for products to be provided to suit all cultures and languages.

 

Software companies should preplan for the localization of products during the development stage, and thereby avoid the need to redo work, be ready to get products to international markets quicker, and save huge costs, according to Rivka Herman, general manager of Weizman Software Localization (WSL).

 

Herman says software startups in particular almost never design their products for localization and instead are in a rush to get it out based on the English version.  “Software developers just don’t envision their product speaking 18 languages,” she notes.

 

WSL, based in Herzliya’s high-tech zone, is a firm that specializes in software localization for international markets.

 

The localization trend in software development is relatively new, Herman notes. Microsoft has created the standard for internationalization and has changed the way the software industry relates to multicultural use of products.

 

If the groundwork for the adaptation is carried out while the product is in development, the process is referred to as internationalization. Localization will likely still be necessary to suit the product to cultural, linguistic and other requirements of a foreign market.

 

The internationalization standard entails the designing of the software product so that it is readily available for adaptation to any target language, including future markets. The principles of this phase include separation of code from content, preparation of textual strings for translation, and ensuring the code is capable of handling all languages.

 

WSL works with FIGS (French, Italian, German, Spanish), CCJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) and also handles Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish, and other European and Asian languages. It works with Hebrew and Arabic as well. Ironically, Herman says that while all languages have their problems, it is Hebrew and Arabic that are the most challenging to convert because of the right-to-left character sequence.

 

Keep localization work close to home

 

Many companies fall in the trap of shipping off their product to the target country for localization and not being able to maintain quality control over the conversion, according to Herman, who was a marketing executive at Tadiran for over a decade before founding WSL.

 

Herman says the advantage to working with a localization company based near a software company is the easy access and interaction to the engineers in the R&D center who need to make changes and to solve all the problems that accrued when software content is untranslatable.

 

WSL maintains in-house localization experts, engineers, content managers and QA language managers for the most widespread international languages, but also imports specialists from other target markets to work on projects if necessary.

 

 

Herman emphasizes a number of important localization guidelines for software companies.

 

Localization tips

 

• Be sure to solve gender problems

 

• Beware of compounded strings

 

• Create ample space in templates to accommodate languages that use more volume

 

• Don’t use colors that could be offensive to certain cultures.

 

• Adjust the command form from active to passive if necessary to fit the culture.

 

• Make changes to accommodate different dialects of the same language such as British and American English and Spanish in South America and Spain.