Phasing Software i18n and L10n: What’s Right for Your Company?
Going global is a big step. Moving from the massive challenge of getting a company off the ground and past the initial challenge of proving that your idea can work has already put your company in a league beyond most.
Aside from incidental web traffic and interest from new countries and regions, for many companies, going global means setting up partnerships, offices and agents. For software, it also means internationalizing and localizing software so that it’s competitive and meets sales requirements. Internationalization (i18n) of your software is a business case driven undertaking, in response to opportunities and strategy. It is not like a feature that you might add in a sprint or two.
That said, all global targets are not equal in terms of technical requirements. This post gives you a brief overview of stages of software i18n and localization (L10n) and what opportunities each may open for your company. It’s not intended as a technical resource, but more as a primer for product and localization managers.
The Basics
- Internationalization, often abbreviated as i18n (i – then 18 letters – n), is the process of making a single code base locale-independent so the application can be easily localized to other locales with no source code changes.
- Localization, often abbreviated as L10n (L– then 10 letters– n), is the translation and application of locale-specific terms and style so that a product is locale-specific – that is, it looks and reads like a product native to the market in which it is being sold.
- Globalization, sometimes abbreviated as g11n (g– then 11 letters– n), includes both internationalization and localization together and often refers to the entire process of supporting other locales.
- A locale in computing is a set of parameters that defines the user’s language, region and any special variant preferences that the user wants to see in their user interface. Usually a locale identifier consists of at least a language identifier and a region identifier. Consider that in both the US and the UK, the typical language is English, but other parameters such as date format, temperature and even some spelling is different.
Why Wasn’t It Internationalized in the First Place?
In a perfect world, all products would be created with i18n as a fundamental requirement from the start. But often with new product development, teams are just trying to make a product work and see if there’s a response. The initial focus is on relevance and acceptance of the application. Follow-on efforts are feature focused. I18n isn’t really like a feature, as its requirements underpin an entire application.
As mentioned above, going back and internationalizing code requires a business case. It takes time and will distract the development team from new features. There are times when products are rewritten, which is an excellent window to spend some effort on internationalization. In many cases i18n is a good opportunity for outsourcing, bringing in i18n expertise that allows your team to focus elsewhere, while still learning from the experts to ensure that future development will be internationalized. Expert help enables you to implement i18n faster with greater quality and less project risk.
Although people often think i18n is just about string externalization and the resulting localization, there is much more involved. There are locale frameworks that will govern locale behavior, methods/functions/classes that may need to be changed, static files to alter, and even hard coded patterns (e.g. a hard coded font) that may need fixing. Issues like date/time, address, phone number, numerical and measurement formats will have to adapt to local preferences. You’ll need character support, sorting changes and more. String externalization is like the visible part of an iceberg. You see it, but there’s much more below the surface.
Consumer Facing Software
It’s easy to see how consumer facing software has a higher requirement for i18n and L10n if it’s to gain broad acceptance, even in markets where English is more common.
That said, we do hear the argument that English is commonly used and understood in many places. Remember, if you travel to major cities in Europe, you’ll find that you can get along with English pretty well. But in terms of product preferences, people typically prefer engaging in their own languages. As you get out of major cities, you’ll find less English proficiency. Even with English (which English?) you still have formatting issues as mentioned, like decimal and comma placement in numbers.
Technical Software
We see the “English everywhere” argument even more with technical software. To an extent, if your users are technical (i.e., system administrators), you can use English in more markets. But you’ll fall flat in Asia Pacific countries, such as Japan, Korea and China.
Below is a broad summary of i18n phases or levels which can be applied depending upon the business case. The best is to be global ready for everywhere of course.
Unicode
If your targets are in Western European languages (i.e. French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese and more), you won’t need Unicode support in your application. That said, if you’re working on i18n, I like to recommend that people take on Unicode as early as possible. Most every modern database and programming language offers Unicode support, but you have to enable it. In our experience, Unicode support can be about 25% more work on an i18n implementation (there are exceptions), but remember that if you’re already in the code making i18n changes, it’s more efficient to do it now than restart the process later. This is a generalization, and there are plenty of specific application, business case and market driven exceptions. For example, somebody sold something and you have to deliver your product in Brazilian Portuguese in three months (true story!).
Unicode support will need to be a prerequisite if you have plans for markets/languages with complex scripts such as Japanese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Hebrew, Arabic and Cyrillic based languages (i.e., Russian).
I18n Phase 1: Data
The very first internationalization priority should be the ability to input, process and transform customer data. In my opinion, this should be a benchmark requirement for any software that could have global customers or enterprise customers, whether or not localization is considered to be in the future. Note that the U/I is not changing in this phase. There is no U/I localization yet.
Even if you are actively selling only in your home country, it’s likely that you will run into customers in other countries, or your customers will have customers in other countries. At least let people enter data in multiple languages and formats. Store it, transform it and retrieve it without corrupting it.
Minimally, accents and diacritics shouldn’t cause character corruption (those square boxes and odd shapes you’ve probably seen). Better yet, add unicode support in the database and source code. Character corruption shouldn’t be caused via issues in the various components of your product source code.
Character corruption example:
Better if data can be stored and managed in variable formats for information such as date/time, numerical units, addresses, phone numbers and currencies.
Automation is the best approach to achieving this in a seamless, efficient and scalable manner. To that end, Lingoport’s Globalyzer can be used to scan your source code and database scripts to find these issues and guide developers to fix them. Our services team can perform refactoring work, as well.
I18n Phase 1.5: Locale Frameworks
You’ll need a locale framework for each programming language within your source code.
This paves the way for string externalization and presentation which will be needed for localization. Presentation of formats for date/time, numerical units, addresses, phone numbers, collation, currencies and more are also controlled by locale frameworks.
Lingoport’s services teams can help you make the right choices and even implement them for you.
I18n Phase 2: Language and Localization
String externalization is often what most people think of as the critical i18n and L10n step. User-facing words or strings are removed from being embedded in the source code and replaced with a function call typically to a resource file where the strings will now reside. This way, if the user selects a locale preference (remember those locale frameworks), French in France for example, the code will retrieve the French strings in the resource file for presentation.
String externalization can be tedious and time consuming. The issue is that lots of things may look like strings at the source code level that aren’t actually user-facing strings. Examples are named variables, debug statements and internal queries. Lingoport’s Globalyzer has default and extendable capabilities to aid these distinctions. Globalyzer Workbench enables an i18n engineer to assemble strings, walk through them and then externalize them in bulk.
You’ll also want to test your work. Lingoport’s Resource Manager will automatically generate a pseudo-locale that will help your team functionally test how the software will behave in another language, without the testers needing to understand that target language. Pad characters are added around the original English strings with expansion automatically set based on typical U/I requirements in the target languages. Alternatively, the expansion can be configured manually. This way, testers can immediately see any missed strings or U/I elements that won’t properly expand for likely longer words and changes in fonts in other languages (i.e., German, Chinese).
Pseudo localized page for a family tree application:
I18n Phase 2.5: Workflow
With some software, workflow and processes are different depending on market requirements. This takes market research and coordination with in-country representation. For instance, tax management, or medical administrative software is likely to have different requirements and steps in most markets.
I18n Phase 3: Bidi Support
If your product is being sold in places using bi-directional languages such as Hebrew or Arabic, you’ll need to enable and test your pages to support U/I mirroring and the bi-directional nature of text that goes right to left, but with left to right elements within. Unicode support is a prerequisite.
Ongoing i18n and L10n
Now that you’ve internationalized and localized your software, your work isn’t over. Your teams will be steadily releasing new features and functionality. I18n surprises can arise down the line that cost time and iterations to fix. It’s not hard for a developer to make a mistake. Just as your teams may continuously measure for coding quality issues and security, i18n quality now becomes another metric.
Localization for every sprint, branch and repository makes for tedious and error prone work that slows agile progress. That process can be automated, taking your developers out of the resource file update nanny business.
Lingoport Suite’s Globalyzer continuously supports i18n from the developer IDE to source repositories. Lingoport’s Resource Manager automates resource file updates from source to translation and back again, with quality checks in each direction. QA is supported as well.
Lingoport Dashboard lets teams see and manage i18n & L10n status and process, supporting i18n issue drill downs to associated source code, issue assignment and completion. Similarly, Localization resource file issues can be itemized and examined.
We’ve seen teams go from 5-week localization update cycles to under 3-days over hundreds of repositories. Our services teams have internationalized many well known applications ranging from small to millions of lines of code, and you would be surprised to see the efficiency gains that are achievable in the development process.
We hope that you find this primer useful as you look to address i18n and L10n of your own software products. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out and a Lingoport team member will be happy to talk through the issues with you.
Other resources:
- 10X Globalization Webinar with FamilySearch’s Rob Thomas
- CA AgileCentral/Rally Software Webinar
- Fearlessly Leading Globalization Webinar with NetApp’s Anna Schlegel
Paul-Henri Arnaud (Autodesk, Inc.) is a senior process analyst on the localization services engineering team at Autodesk Development Sàrl in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. With over ten years’ experience at Autodesk and 17 years in the industry, he is a specialist in aiding development teams design, implement and test globalized applications that are used by millions of design professionals worldwide. Previously, at ViewStar Corporation, he was a key contributor to the creation and enabling of the first German, French and Japanese versions of business process and document management software. Paul-Henri holds a B.Sc. in electrical engineering and computer science from U-C Berkeley.
Andrey comes to Smartling from his role as VP, Technology at SpaFinder, where he developed and maintained the site and eCommerce platform in 6 languages. Previously, he held executive positions at RunTime Technologies and consulted for JP Morgan Chase, where he was responsible for eCommerce, digital asset management, data warehousing and other large-scale projects. He’s a native Russian speaker. He holds a BS in Computer Science from Brooklyn College and lives in New Jersey with his wife and children. He’s passionate about all things technology, and a good cup of coffee.
Adam Asnes founded Lingoport in 2001 after seeing firsthand that the niche for software globalization engineering products and services was underserved in the localization industry. Lingoport helps globally focused technology companies adapt their software for worldwide markets with expert internationalization and localization consulting and Globalyzer software. Globalyzer, a market leading software internationalization tool, helps entire enterprises and development teams to effectively internationalize existing and newly developed source code and to prepare their applications for localization.
Renato is an international business analyst and strategist. He has served on the executive teams for some of the industry’s most prominent companies, and co-founded the first market research company focusing on the language services space (Common Sense Advisory). He was the President and is currently an Advisor to ELIA (European Language Industry Association) and also a Board Member of Translators without Borders, a non-profit organization that provides translations for NGOs.
Adam Blau is an experienced globalization executive and overseer of Lingoport’s growing account base and global outreach strategy. Adam, having lived in Germany for over nine years, is a fluent German speaker with a knack for travel. Previously, Adam worked at Milengo, where he oversaw their worldwide sales team residing in North and South America as well as Europe. Adam received his degree in economics and German from Bates College in Maine and holds a Strategic Sales Management certificate from the University of Chicago. A connoisseur of culture, Adam loves to travel (logging over 100,000 miles in 2011) and cook.
As a Program Manager in Acclaro’s San Francisco office, Lydia helps clients develop and execute successful globalization strategies. Lydia has held project management, technical lead, and senior engineering positions with Acclaro and other localization firms. With ten years of experience in the industry, Lydia has successfully localized a wide variety of software, web, multimedia, documentation, and search projects. Lydia holds a BA from Cornell University with additional concentrations in Latin American studies and international relations.
Kent Grave is an internationalization and localization management consultant and has worked with global software for over 20 years managing large-scale projects in Europe, Asia and the United States for IBM, Siebel Systems, Microsoft and Cisco. Kent has been involved in all aspects of providing global software over the years and areas of primary interest are efficient and consistent internationalization strategy and best practices as the backbone of timely and high-quality localization. Kent grew up in Denmark and moved to California in 1990. He has an MBA in international technology management and a master’s in marketing to complement a bachelor’s degree in computer science.
Becca Gronau is an application architect working for Elsevier, Inc. with 15 years development experience. A graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Becca started her career with Electronic Data Systems (since acquired by Hewlett Packard) as a software engineer. While at EDS, Becca worked with various technologies from mainframe, to desktop, to web applications. After transitioning to Elsevier in 2003, Becca honed a specialty in a multi-tier web development. Becca has recent experience as the lead architect responsible for internationalizing a large, industry leading, web application.
For the last 22 years, Knut Grossmann was involved in practically every aspect of localization: audio, video, documentation, animation, art, web content, and software. He started off as a freelance translator, continued to work as a project manager, and then as localization manager for companies like Consilium, NeXT Computer, and Maxis. When Maxis was bought by Electronic Arts, he continued as the Localization Director, working on such world renowned titles like Sim City and The Sims. Recently, he worked at Sony Online Entertainment as Executive Director of the International Group, and later as the principal consultant of his own firm, Games Without Borders. He now manages all localization and internationalization efforts for Marin Software, a company that provides software solutions worldwide for marketers and agencies in the online advertising business.
Adam oversees SimulTrans’ worldwide operations, including project management, translation, engineering, testing, multilingual publishing, account management, and marketing. Adam has spent over 19 years directing the company’s customer outreach efforts, internal production groups, and other operations. Relevant to this topic, Adam’s first role at SimulTrans involved analyzing projects and optimizing translation memory leveraging; he led the company’s implementation of various translation tools, including WorldServer. Adam regularly gives training presentations at conferences of the Society for Technical Communications, the American Translators Association, the Software & Information Industry Association, and other groups. Adam previously worked in Strategic Accounts at Oracle Corporation and as a high school English teacher. He holds BA and MA degrees from Stanford University, in Public Policy and Education.
Michael Kuperstein has been working deep in the trenches of many localization projects, produced in partnership between Intel’s in-house localization group and Intel business units. Michael was hired by Intel in 1996 as a software engineer, later transferring to Intel’s localization team in 2001 as the dotcom bubble burst. He wears many hats as a localization engineer, software architect, application developer, tool wrangler, speaker, group historian, and all around go-to / fix-it guy for software internationalization. Armed with a vast array of creative concepts, software tools, internal social networking sites, defect reports and screenshots, financial data, and presentations, Michael is on a mission to evangelize proper internationalization and localization at Intel.
Olivier Libouban has worked in the software industry for nearly three decades as a software engineer and project manager for start-ups as well as large corporations. A native of France, Olivier has wide ranging experience in the United States, France, Switzerland and Norway with work in research and development departments as well as client projects of all sizes and complexity. Olivier has a Diplôme d’Ingénieur from the National Institute of Applied Sciences in France and a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Olivier is a sought after internationalization presenter and teacher… and also has a great sense of humor!
Michael is a specialist in globalization of applications and distributed systems with over two decades of internationalization experience. He is a licensed professional engineer with extensive experience consulting or leading globalization projects for a number Fortune 500 companies and has a background in global e-commerce, application design, database internals, distributed bibliographic systems, test engineering, global product management, and ethnographic research. He is currently in an engineering leadership position with the International Production team at Zynga Inc.
With more than twelve years experience in the translation and localization industry, Michael Meinhardt, CEO and Co-founder of Cloudwords, helps companies go global by streamlining their translation strategy. Prior to Cloudwords, Meinhardt worked with organizations across various industries to localize their product, marketing, and training materials for the first time. He has also advised enterprise customers regarding their global translation strategy, including Cisco Systems, Hitachi Data Systems, Apple and Symantec.
Russell Taga is VP Engineering at HotelTonight, a travel start-up up with a mobile-only focus that helps people to find last minute hotel rooms they’ll love at a great price. Russ has worked for a mix of start-ups and big companies over the past 14 years including Spartan Software, Howcast Media, Adobe, Cisco, Idiom, and Accenture.
Tex Texin has been providing globalization services including architecture, strategy, training, and implementation to the software industry for many years. Tex has created numerous global products, built internationalization development teams, designed best practices, and guided companies in taking business to new regional markets. Tex is also an advocate for internationalization standards in software and on the Web. He is a representative to the Unicode Consortium and on the steering committees for open source software. Tex is the owner/author of the popular 
As the U.S. West Coast Operations Director for international localization agency Acclaro Inc., Emma Young manages client relationships, localization endeavors and sales. She has 15 years of localization experience, with expertise in testing and QA, account management and operations. Learn how Acclaro helps the world’s leading brands succeed across cultures at