Weaving localization issues into a content strategy

Issues in Content Localization

Lise Janody Confab 2012, Minneapolis, May 15, 2012

Localize Why Localize ?

ENGLISH IS THE WORLD’S MOST INFLUENTIAL LANGUAGE

Georges Weber, The World’s 10 Most Influential Languages

….AND IT ISN’T ABOUT TO CHANGE ANY TIME SOON

89% of European schoolchildren learn English as a second language

Very high level of comfort with English among more than 50% of Europeans

350 million Chinese are learning English

It is the de facto language of work in many global companies

Eurobarometer 2011: User Language Preferences Online - Robert McCrum, Globish: How English became the world’s language, Anchor Canada 2011; Image Fotolia

9 of 10 Internet users would access web in THEIR language – if given the choice*

Eurobarometer 2011: User Language Preferences Online

Preference Ability is not Preference

But…

44% of European internet users believe they’re missing information when accessing in non-native language*

Eurobarometer 2011: User Language Preferences Online

Details Getting the gist is not Getting the details

ACCEPTANCE IS NOT ADHERENCE

Eurobarometer 2011: User Language Preferences Online

Only 18% of EU internet users polled would purchase goods or services in a foreign language. *

Eurobarometer 2011: User Language Preferences Online

Transaction Access is not

Transaction

WHY NOT JUST USE GOOGLE TRANSLATE?

Localization is good

Preference User preference + More sales +

Trust and persuasion =

BUT

• Costly

•  Time-consuming

• Quality an ongoing issue

• Budgets are fragmented

• Requires supporting tools and processes

• Creates complexity

hard Localization is hard

How can we help reduce costs, speed translation cycles, make it less complex?

Q

Make it part of the content strategy cycle, and not a

parallel process

A

A FEW

DEFINITIONS

Localization is the process of adapting internationalized software for a specific region or language by adding locale-specific components and translating text.

From Wikipedia

A SERIES OF LONG ACRONYMS: GILT

Going into other markets

Ensuring platforms and tools can handle technical requirements of globalization: fonts, date formats, time formats, error pages, etc.

Adapting content to another context

Taking content in one language and making it understandable in another

Globalization

Internationalization Localization

Translation

L10N

T9N

G11N

L18N

Localization

COUNTRY

Translation

LANGUAGE

Country & Language LOCALES

MODEL Choice of approach affects your Architectural Model

LOCALE FIRST

Corporate site is in two languages: English and language of Headquarters

GLOBAL REACH, LOCAL TOUCH

GLOBAL REACH, LOCAL TOUCH – REDUCED SCOPE CONTENT

GLOBAL REACH, LOCAL TOUCH

REDUCED SCOPE, FEWER LEVELS

MULTI-PURPOSE, DIFFERENT AUDIENCES

MULTI-PURPOSE, DIFFERENT AUDIENCES

MULTI-LANGUAGE VERSIONS

MULTI-LANGUAGE VERSIONS

International English default, with limited localized resources

LOCALIZED RESOURCES WITHIN ENGLISH SITE

•  Localized keyword research

•  Duplicate content among countries with same language

•  New Google hreflang tags

SEO Approach impacts SEO

•  Substitute components

•  Add/remove

•  Parent/child

•  Content modeling

SMS Approach impacts CMS

•  One rule for all locales?

•  One rule for the whole site?

•  Can you localize the landing page?

•  Can you localize entire sections?

•  Can you opt-in/opt-out?

•  Specific pages?

•  Specific page components?

Governance Approach impacts Governance

Content And of course,

Content

THE GOAL: MAKING YOUR LOCALIZED CONTENT EFFECTIVE

PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE CONTENT*…. ….APPLIED TO LOCALIZATION

APPROPRIATE Does it apply to the local context?

USEFUL Is your purpose the same in all your markets?

USER-CENTERED Can your users understand?

CLEAR Is translation quality high? Is it localized?

CONSISTENT Are you reinforcing brand while keeping costs down?

CONCISE Less is more – and less costs less

SUPPORTED Do you have the processes, tools, people, and budgets required?

*From Elements of Content Strategy, Erin Kissane, A Book Apart, 2011

YOU WHAT’S BEST

FOR ?

SETTING TARGETS, EXAMINING WHAT YOU HAVE…

Creating baselines

SETTING THE TARGET

• Inform • Educate • Interact • Convert • Transact • Recruit

• Market presence • Type • Number of

People • Consistency of

offering • Culture and

Heritage

• Ability to speak English

• Language preference • Audience A, B, C, D

• Formal/informal • Other elements

impacting Look and feel

• Market size and potential

• Legal & contractual obligations

• Brand recognition • Competition

Market forces

Cultural forces

Site objectives

Internal Forces

• Number of languages

•  IA Model (or models)

• Number of tiers

BASELINE TARGETS DEFINING WHERE YOU WANT TO GO

IF YOU’RE NOT STARTING FROM SCRATCH

WHAT’S ON THE WEBSITE IN LOCAL LANGUAGES?

BUT ALSO WHAT’S OUT THERE?

From what bucket

% of bucket that’s translated

% of bucket that’s localized

How it’s maintained

Owner

Enlist local help to locate

Mini-sites, YouTube, SlideShare, Twitter, Facebook

REVIEWING YOUR LOCAL SITES

QUALIFY YOUR SOURCE CONTENT

• Volume of web pages

• Volume of associated content assets

• How often content changes

• Relevance to local audiences

• Budget and ownership

•  Potential for localization

EXAMINE YOUR ECOSYSTEM

• Number of players

• Centralized or decentralized language management?

•  In-house or outsourced?

• Centralized or decentralized web management?

• Who owns the budget for what? Is there one?

LOOK AT YOUR TOOLSET

• Translation Memory

• Terminology Management

• Translation Management

• Machine Translation

LOOK AT TIME AND METRICS

• Latency

Time from source to published, translated version

• Metrics

If there are sites, are they being visited?

• Costs

Can you develop benchmarks?

Identify gaps – in content, tools, and resources

Pretty good ballpark figure of costs

- Costs per language and per word (translation)

- Costs for transcreation and original content development

FIND THE GAPS, REFINE THE PLAN

•  What you’ll do with it

•  With what quality

•  With what workflow

•  For which formats

•  For which devices

Content Make decisions about localizing content

WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU LOCALIZE?

As is Keep in full, translate as is

Chunk Add, subtract

Change Shorten, replace, select, rethink

Leave it Link to English or provide no links

WHAT LEVEL OF TRANSLATION QUALITY?

•  Transcreation

•  Marketing messages, conceptual, value props

•  Tool-supported translation

•  Translation memory, terminology management, post-edited machine translation

•  Structured content

• Machine translation

•  Large volumes of straightforward content

•  Real-time communications: forums, chat

•  Also, for listening…

SUPPORTING DIFFERENT FORMATS

•  Text…but also

•  Video

•  Chat

•  Webinars

•  Micro-copy

-  Banner headlines

-  Calls to action

-  Asset descriptions and titles

SUPPORTING MOBILE DEVICES

•  Truncated words

•  Separate processes

•  The dominance of mobile in many markets

SAMPLE RULES FOR SITE SECTION

SOLUTIONS Section Pages Translate Quality? Who Localize? Who Comments

Tier 1 Must Must In full TC for level 1; TM for rest

Central, with local validation; Local for TC

Add info about in-country delivery capability;

Local

Tier 2 Must Opt-in Level 1 only

TC for level 1; TM for rest

Central, with local validation; Local for TC

Add info about in-country delivery capability

Local

Tier 3 Must Replace with Summary

Yes TM Central, local validation

No Use default www

•  Add qualifiers to your inventory

•  Include requirements in your page specs

•  Make your content global-ready

Action Put content decisions

into action

ADD COLUMNS TO YOUR INVENTORY

Page Opt-In Translate Localize Status Comments

www.alpha.com/solution/Solution 1/index.html

Yes Exists Add In progress

www.alpha.com/solution/Solution 1/index.html

yes Exists Exists Done

www.alpha.com/solution/Solution 1/index.html

Yes To do Add TM done, need to add

WEAVE LOCALIZATION INTO PAGE SPECS

• Do you translate? Yes/No

• Do you chunk, change or leave?

• What’s global, what’s local?

• What’s distinct about the local?

• What changes and how?

• Source content for local differences

• Who validates local content?

• Who pays?

MAKE IT GLOBAL-READY

• Remove idioms

• Keywords

•  Terminology requirements

• Voice and tone

A FEW TIPS

DON’T…

• Confuse local and locally-produced

• Have several translation memories

• Use just one standard process for all your content

•  Treat localization as an afterthought

DO….

• Use tools to support and lower costs

• Have a feedback loop with your LSP

• Keep the glossary updated

•  Try to limit number of players involved

•  Find alternatives to latency issues

•  Track metrics

• Keep tabs on costs

•  Put someone in charge

•  Lise Janody

• www.dot-connection.com

• @lisejanody

Thanks Merci Thanks