Archive for category: Internationalization

As part of Lingoport’s upcoming webinar, Bringing a Human Touch to Continuous L10n, we interviewed our featured guest speaker, Paul Hegarty, Head of Engineering at Iota, to get some quick insights into the current state and future of localization. Specifically, Paul explores how advances in automation technology is impacting the customization, speed, and quality of localization output.

How has Localization evolved since you began in the industry? Where do you see the industry 10 years from now?

Paul Hegarty: Massively. I started in the l10n industry in 1994, and large QA teams were a part of all l10n providers. Manuals were printed, software was mass produced on disk sets and CDs, online was really only in its infancy. Cloud computing has completely changed how we work, QA is now a mixture of shorter, targeted test passes with the ability to fix issues almost “live”. Updates are now much more frequent and less static, they can occur at any time, and for numerous reasons. The cloud has completely changed how we work, how we communicate, how projects are run and delivered. Online technologies have replaced a lot of the desktop technologies we used – documentation is now usually built via web based build systems rather than compiled on a desktop. In another 10 years I see the industry being further distanced from the concept of “desktop” computing – everything we do will be in the cloud, and we’ll become more and more device agnostic.

Why has customizability become so important for L10n?

Paul Hegarty: The variety of file types, the content within those file types and how dev teams address l10n (which is often a low priority) mean that what we actually get to translate is far from a standard format. While some long established dev teams have their product well prepared for l10n, many of the products we see are new (that’s becoming more common), with the result that a proper l10n strategy has not been defined. In a lot of cases, a proper strategy might never be defined as these products are under constant change. Hence, we often find ourselves having to customize solutions for individual projects to make sure our translators can access everything they need to access, in a manner that is productive for them, whilst hiding them from the material that they don’t want or need to see. The other element to this is the very granular requirements around some of the projects we see, where certain components of a project might be translatable in one language but not in others. So not only are we customizing for a massive variety of file formats, but the complexity of translation requirements of the overall project is increasing also.

How have advances in L10n technology and processes impacted the quality, speed, and needs of L10n??

Paul Hegarty: I think the demands of l10n customers are driving the l10n technologies, not the other way around. Our industry and the technologies we employ are driven by the increasing demands of our customers. Speed is crucial as release schedules get tighter and tighter, and volumes continue to grow. Efficient reuse of previous translation is critical to the success of projects that are constantly being updated.

What would you describe as the leading challenge of blending technologies and customizability?

Paul Hegarty: For me, that is deciding when you employ and pay for an off-the-shelf technology compared with a customized solution. For established projects with large volumes and lots of updates, where the workflow is defined, it makes sense that a technology solution will work (and importantly will be worth paying for). For new projects, not so defined (dev teams unfamiliar with l10n), with smaller volumes and constantly changing formats and requirements, customized solutions are the answer as the overhead in terms of time and expense for technology solutions often will not be an option.

What is the biggest opportunity to improve L10n processes?

Paul Hegarty: Hard question to answer – in the ideal world, l10n being part of the dev approach to product design – all to often, l10n is an afterthought. From our perspective, being able to adapt to our customers’ needs, advise and educate on best practices around l10n and always reviewing our processes and approach to our customers’ projects is the answer. Improvement is a continuous goal.

Date/Time

• Date: October 24th, 2019
• Time: 9AM Pacific, Noon Eastern, 18:00 CEST
• Duration: 40 minutes, plus audience Q&A

As part of Lingoport’s webinar, Learn Continuous i18n & L10n, and Buy a Droid Too!, we interviewed our featured guest speaker, Allison McDougall, SVP of Global Sales at Amplexor, to get some quick insights into the current state and future of globalization including processes, technology, communication, and opportunities for improvement.

How has i18n technology evolved since you began in the industry?

Allison McDougall: Evolution from traditional ‘train-the-trainer’-style teaching developers how to develop code with localization in mind; evolution from identifying potential I18N issues once development is finished to agile-based, ‘real-time’, continuous I18N. It’s been incredible to witness the combined evolution of both Technology as well as overall global awareness!

What would you describe as the leading challenge of blending technologies and service?

Allison McDougall: Ah, great question! I would say “Understanding the BUSINESS need and ensuring that all team members continue to stay on the same page in terms of requirements, interdependencies, and communication.”

How do you feel globalization will evolve over the next 20 years? How will the technology continue to evolve?

Allison McDougall: Most of us are feeling the effects of increased automation and AI in the industry now … Content and software DEVELOPMENT will become much more automated, as will globalization efforts. Content data stores will be used to create more content, and we’ll be able to globalize much faster using existing technologies that embed AI and are able to make complex decisions ‘on the fly’. People working in this industry will become even more strategic, more valuable, more consultative as we educate clients and executives about the pros/cons around developing software and content that most effectively aligns with business goals.

What is the biggest opportunity to improve globalization processes?

Allison McDougall: Identify your internal Champion. Move up the value chain, insist upon your ‘seat at the table’, create globalized software and content at source — something we have been evangelizing for well over a decade. Globalization can no longer be an after-thought.

Date/Time

• Date: September 26th, 2019
• Time: 9AM Pacific, Noon Eastern, 18:00 CEST
• Duration: 40 minutes, plus audience Q&A

Ready to learn more? View the webinar today!

As part of Lingoport’s webinar, How to Engage Your Organization and Gain Critical Globalization Support, we interviewed guest speaker, Kevin Benson, Global VP of Corporate Sales at United Language Group to get some quick insights into the state of globalization including processes, communication, and opportunities for improvement.

How has globalization evolved since you started in the industry?

Kevin Benson: Process optimization and enhancement, to support human translation, are the most noticeable differences in the industry over the last decade. The ability to seamlessly share content from internal systems of record, without human intervention, has allowed companies to expand their efforts at globalization. Incorporating MT to augment human-based process, in addition to TM, is quickly changing the face of globalization as companies are able to leverage globalization across a broader spectrum of content and processes.

What would you describe as the number one globalization challenge organizations face?

Kevin Benson: Budgetary constraints continue to hamper globalization efforts across companies at a global level. Globalization is often considered as an afterthought around processes which are already optimized for throughput.

How does a lack of support and understanding from leadership teams impact globalization quality and efficiencies?

Kevin Benson: Not considering the budgetary implications of globalization often times causes companies to accept short-cuts in the globalization process which directly impact process efficiency and quality of final content. A firm understanding of globalization processes, investment requirements and overhead of not addressing early in the process is critical to success. Many leadership teams are frustrated by the investment required to ensure global acceptance of their products, but fail to consider or understand the potential cost savings offered by pre-planning and process optimization in the area of globalization.

What is the biggest opportunity to improve globalization processes?

Kevin Benson: Technology and trusted vendor partnerships go hand-in-hand in improving globalization process. Building a globalization process on a foundation of technology, supported by a collaborative team of resources offers tremendous gains on long-term investment and time to market.

Ready to learn more? View the webinar today!

Date/Time

• Date: August 22, 2019
• Time: 9AM Pacific, Noon Eastern, 18:00 CEST
• Duration: 40 minutes, plus audience Q&A

As part of Lingoport’s webinar, The Most Common i18n Gremlins and How to Squash Them, we interviewed Lingoport’s own CEO, Adam Asnes to get some quick insights into i18n gremlins and how they are impacting the quality of localization.

What are i18n gremlins?

Adam Asnes: I18n gremlins are bugs that create localization problems that wouldn’t be tolerated in a product’s native target language (i.e. US-English). They could be as simple as a string that isn’t externalized and will appear in English no matter the target locale, a date/time in the wrong format, a concatenation where the word order, gender or pluralization won’t make sense for translation. These gremlins aren’t cute mistakes and often have a long lifetime until they get fixed.

As software development as evolved to become continuous, how has this impacted the frequency of i18n gremlins going undetected and the impact to the localization quality?

Adam Asnes: It is always far easier, faster and less expensive to fix an i18n gremlin during code creation rather than after localization. With continuous development, we have a clear opportunity to measure i18n and give developers feedback during their sprint, just as you might do for other coding quality measurements.

The impact of i18n gremlins is on the frequency and speed of agile development as developers simply may not have time to go back and fix issues if they are discovered after localization. They will be working in a different area of the source code and just seeing the issue after testing usually doesn’t make it obvious where it occurs. This is why i18n Gremlins can hang around for years.

What is the biggest consequence developers face when they do not proactively prevent and rectify i18n gremlins?

Adam Asnes: The consequence is that the localization and global sales stakeholders have products where they can’t guarantee the presentation and data quality. You localize in the first place for competitive advantage or at least parity in markets. There is so much invested in global opportunities. The US is 24.4% of the global economy measured in 2017 down from 60% twenty years ago. Why not have a product that reflects that?

What i18n issue would you describe as the king of all gremlins?

Adam Asnes: Indifference is the king of all gremlins. When executives remain ignorant, you don’t have global directives. When managers remain indifferent, you have a sloppy attention to i18n. When developers remain indifferent, you have shoddy application of locale.

For a list of i18n Gremlins, see: https://wiki.lingoport.com/Gremlins

Ready to learn more? View the recording today!

Date/Time

• Date: July 30, 2019
• Time: 9AM Pacific, Noon Eastern, 18:00 CEST
• Duration: 40 minutes, plus audience Q&A