Localisation - content strategy
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Slides presented at Content Strategy Forum 2010 in Paris, 16 April 2010. Some presenter notes included.
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Localisation - content strategy
- 1. S LOCALIZATION Content Strategy Forum 2010, Paris Kenneth Yau Baddit Ltd Twitter: @logorrhoea | @baddit Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 2. BONJOUR Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 3. AMÉLIE ROSE Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 4. AMÉLIE ROSE Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 5. AMÉLIE ROSE Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 6. Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 7. Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 8. Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 9. “We estimate that over the last two years there have been less than 20 complaints [about passports not reflecting accents or non-alphabetical characters] in London HQ. ” Identity & Passport Service, UK Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 10. “We estimate that over the last two years there have been less than 20 complaints [about passports not reflecting accents or non-alphabetical characters] in London HQ. ” Identity & Passport Service, UK Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 11. LOCALISATION STRATEGY Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 12. WHAT IS LOCALISATION? Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 13. TRANSLATION "2008_09_16" by sporkist Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved Used under a Creative Commons Attribution licence
- 14. TRANSCREATION "Apples and oranges" by Dano Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved Used under a Creative Commons Attribution licence
- 15. WHY HAVE A LOCALISATION STRATEGY? Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 16. LOCALISE OR NOT? "20060304_0053" by Andrew Michaels Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved Used under a Creative Commons Attribution licence
- 17. http://twitter.com/userfocus/status/9474430983 Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 18. "We are very respectful of local culture – our bistros create the unique atmosphere of Paris," says [McDonald’s senior vice-president of brand strategy] Woreczek [...] UK restaurants... now serve bacon butties for breakfast. Source: The Guardian (UK), 12th March 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/service-design/service-science Untitled by bizmac Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved Used under a Creative Commons Attribution licence
- 19. "We are very respectful of local culture – our bistros create the unique atmosphere of Paris," says [McDonald’s senior vice-president of brand strategy] Woreczek [...] UK restaurants... now serve bacon butties for breakfast. AVERAGE SPEND PER VISIT TO MCDONALD’S: US: €3.50 FRANCE: €11 Source: The Guardian (UK), 12th March 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/service-design/service-science Untitled by bizmac Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved Used under a Creative Commons Attribution licence
- 20. LOCALISATION AND THE CONTENT LIFECYCLE Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 21. From: Content Life Cycle Panel at Razorfish Used with kind permission of Erin Scime Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 22. AUDIT Think a content audit is tedious and difficult enough? Try doing it in multiple languages. “Red, White and Blue "Yay Audits!" and "Audits Rock!" M&M's” by joebeone Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved Used under a Creative Commons Attribution licence
- 23. STRATEGY Who owns, originates and produces the local content? Which voice does it use? How do you serve it? "Day 088/366 - March 28th" by Amanda M Hatfield Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved Used under a Creative Commons Attribution licence
- 24. http://www.playmobil.com/ Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 25. “I visited a German railway station today. I say German, but if it hadn't been for the sausage stands and the pretzel kiosks, I might have thought this was British Rail, not Deutsche Bahn.” Steve Rosenberg, BBC News, Berlin 17th February 2010 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8519246.stm Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 26. PLAN Who looks after local content? What systems will support it? How will you roll it out? What about URLs, SEO? "final layout boards - diagrams - 1" by jonathanvlarocca Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved Used under a Creative Commons Attribution licence
- 27. HSBC - English Clearing Plate - UK Advert http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSLPEwvVvN0 Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 28. HSBC - English Clearing Plate - UK Advert http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSLPEwvVvN0 Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 29. HSBC - English Clearing Plate - UK Advert http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSLPEwvVvN0 “We never underestimate the importance of local knowledge.” Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 30. CREATE Produce content, translate it, check it, curate it "child hands & legos" by Pixi Acid Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved Used under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works licence
- 31. IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT THE WORDS Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 32. IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT THE WORDS Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 33. MAINTAIN Keep content aligned, check quality, analyse, and optimise for local markets. "the mechanics' pit" by axiepics Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved Used under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works licence
- 34. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7702913.stm Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 35. I am not in the office at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7702913.stm the moment. Send any work to be translated. HOW NOT TO LOCALISE Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
- 36. FIN Copyright 2010 Baddit Ltd, All rights reserved
Editor's Notes
- Housekeeping: * let me know if you can’t hear me – don’t suffer in silence. * save questions for the end
- This is my daughter. Last year, we needed to get Amélie a passport so we could travel outside of the UK on holiday.
- This is my daughter. Last year, we needed to get Amélie a passport so we could travel outside of the UK on holiday.
- This is my daughter. Last year, we needed to get Amélie a passport so we could travel outside of the UK on holiday.
- When filling out the form online, we were confronted with this. A horrifically designed and error-strewn piece of help copy containing the astounding - to me - information that we could not put the acute accent on the e in Amélie’s name.
- When filling out the form online, we were confronted with this. A horrifically designed and error-strewn piece of help copy containing the astounding - to me - information that we could not put the acute accent on the e in Amélie’s name.
- When filling out the form online, we were confronted with this. A horrifically designed and error-strewn piece of help copy containing the astounding - to me - information that we could not put the acute accent on the e in Amélie’s name.
- When filling out the form online, we were confronted with this. A horrifically designed and error-strewn piece of help copy containing the astounding - to me - information that we could not put the acute accent on the e in Amélie’s name.
- When filling out the form online, we were confronted with this. A horrifically designed and error-strewn piece of help copy containing the astounding - to me - information that we could not put the acute accent on the e in Amélie’s name.
- When filling out the form online, we were confronted with this. A horrifically designed and error-strewn piece of help copy containing the astounding - to me - information that we could not put the acute accent on the e in Amélie’s name.
- When filling out the form online, we were confronted with this. A horrifically designed and error-strewn piece of help copy containing the astounding - to me - information that we could not put the acute accent on the e in Amélie’s name.
- When filling out the form online, we were confronted with this. A horrifically designed and error-strewn piece of help copy containing the astounding - to me - information that we could not put the acute accent on the e in Amélie’s name.
- So naturally I wasn't happy. I couldn't understand why something that simple - and presumably standard in countries like France - couldn't be achieved on a British passport. Remarkably, someone out there went to the trouble of requesting details of what's not allowed, what happens if someone applies with disallowed characters and how many complaints had been made. They did this last year using the Freedom of Information Act, which meant the agency *had* to give a reasonable response BY LAW. This impresses me much more than just an ordinary polite letter. http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/disallowed_characters_in_names_o?unfold=1 Disappointingly, fewer than 20 people complained so do people really care about localisation? Well, I care, and so should you.
- So naturally I wasn't happy. I couldn't understand why something that simple - and presumably standard in countries like France - couldn't be achieved on a British passport. Remarkably, someone out there went to the trouble of requesting details of what's not allowed, what happens if someone applies with disallowed characters and how many complaints had been made. They did this last year using the Freedom of Information Act, which meant the agency *had* to give a reasonable response BY LAW. This impresses me much more than just an ordinary polite letter. http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/disallowed_characters_in_names_o?unfold=1 Disappointingly, fewer than 20 people complained so do people really care about localisation? Well, I care, and so should you.
- Effects of localisation choice - even a choice not to do it - are great. Internal effects on staff, technology, processes, procedures, budgets. And then, of course, on content. Localisation is a huge topic. So huge that it has its own two-day conference (and probably others I don’t know about) called Localization World. The next one is in June in Berlin. I can only scratch the surface and make you think about the questions you need to answer. Localization World will give you more guidance on how to answer those questions, so if you want to find out more, I suggest you check that out.
- There are generally three terms bandied around in this area - translation, transcreation, internationalisation. Two main, not necessarily mutually exclusive, approaches - translation and transcreation. Internationalisation, can be – pedantically, the difference between localising something for an international audience as opposed to within borders. Mostly, it’s seen as the technical aspect that allows products to be localised.
- Translation, conceptually, sticks close to the source. E.g. our source is a tomato, so we translate it as another tomato, perhaps of the same colour, maybe not, but a tomato nonetheless. To use another phrase, you could easily compare apples with apples when looking at the source and the translation.
- Transcreation captures the essence but doesn’t necessarily copy. While the source is an tomato, the essential feature is that it’s a fruit so our translation sticks to the subject of fruit, but isn’t an tomato. Equally, if we felt the important thing here, depending on the content, is that we have something round, we could choose to translate as a football. It’s context dependent. Translating the idea rather than the words themselves. You most often hear about transcreation in a creative context, usually marketing because some ideas don't travel that well. E.g. think carefully before putting the British flag on an Irish site.
- If you believe, as I do, that how a business expresses itself in its content affects how a brand is perceived, then the external effects of your localisation choice also affects your brand's perception in a certain way. Can apply to regions within countries, not just across international borders. Unless you are very specifically serving a particular community, why wouldn't you think about this, at least to come to the conclusion that you won't do it and to document that fact and why you don't need to localise?
- Do nothing or do something - either way, not a neutral choice. Still have to choose a default language and then watch out for your cultural sensitivities. And a reminder: think about how local ‘local’ is - it’s not just about country/language.
- The English to [other country’s] English UK and US localisation is the trickiest of the lot. It's dangerous to think that it's easy, because in a lot of ways it's harder 1. to convince the source writer that their English doesn’t translate well to another English and 2. to realise there's any need for any local checking/proof-reading in the first place. E.g. in the UK, calling someone a 'muppet' is not a good thing. Doesn’t seem to be an issue in US.
- Main reason why anything really happens in business is to serve a business purpose and ultimately bring in money. McDonald’s is a great example. When I was growing up the idea was that you would get the same experience all over the world - same food, same restaurant design, same experience. Yet by embracing localisation, McDonald’s gets an average spend in France - a country initially resistant to the brand - over three times that of the US.
- This is a general life cycle for content, rather than being about localisation, but we’ll use the main stages in the next slides.
- The objective inventory/audit, where you list out the pages, list owners, last updated date, and so on is hard enough work. Then multiply that out by however many local sites you've got. Bring in the more subjective stuff where you're evaluating for quality of content, and you haven't just multiplied the work, you've multiplied the number of people involved in that because you need people who know the locality being served to make judgements for you. And somehow you have to try and baseline that. You also have to make decisions on how closely you want the content to mirror the source, if indeed you have a source. So you can see already, how localisation brings in different aspects to add to your content strategy. Localisation is hard work already, just by multiplying the work. And that’s just the start.
- It’s hard enough to get content considered important enough to be looked after by the right people. If you're localising, you need to argue for it all over again. Unless you're a massive multi-national, you're going to find it much harder to find the resources for this. My experience: sales teams take ownership because the business reasons for local websites tend to stem from local sales. However, they're not always in the best position to recognise good content - either through lack of time or content skills. So it's good to plan some support, whether through a trusted local agency, or through a central in-house team. Voice: decision is use a straightforward/robotic tone of voice in the source language that can be translated easily, or stick with the conversational and risk losing it in translation or spend the money on good translation/transcreation. Good content costs a lot and so does good translation/transcreation. How are present local content as a choice?
- This is what you see when you first visit Playmobil.com. First task before you get to any useful content is to choose your country using the appropriate flag. The eConsultancy article about this [http://econsultancy.com/blog/5529-10-heinous-usability-crimes-committed-by-playmobil] suggests that "the website should detect the visitor's IP address and automatically direct them to the relevant site, why make them work any harder than they need to? It's just annoying." My user journey: - Use Mac at home, search in Safari, Google detects UK IP address, defaults to google.co.uk - a good thing - Come to Paris, search in Safari, Google detects French IP address, defaults to google.fr - serves French results and interface in French, even though I’m searching on a machine set up in English and I normally search in English. Annoying. So IP address detection isn’t the obvious solution.
- This article illustrates a couple of separate points for me: 1. If you're not an English company, do you use English at least as an alternative language on the assumption that most native English speakers aren't great with foreign languages, whereas Germans, say, are great at English? 2. How do you show your company's origins? Does it matter if a German company comes across as, say, a UK company? Experience is that it can make a difference to local sales. Other point is that many technical terms are sometimes left in English rather than translated because they are understood in a technical context. You need a translator smart enough to know when to leave it in the English.
- What happens to local content on day 2, day 200, day 2000? Who does the actual management? What systems and processes are in place to ensure changes are reflected across the languages/locales. How are you going to roll it out? All in one go? If not, in what order? Do you risk people thinking you don't care about the US market if you roll out a French site first and leave the US localisation to later? If you're launching something that's PR worthy, how do you deal with staggered releases if the US press can see the French press release? URLs - first question, do you try to snap up all the country variations of the top level domains for the markets you're serving or hope to serve? What if you can't - choose a different domain name or swallow it? And then in the URLs, do you translate them into French, German, American spellings, and so on?
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSLPEwvVvN0 "We never underestimate the importance of local knowledge. Which is why we have local banks staffed by local people..." Make sure you staff it right and at the very least have a local review. Doesn’t have to be the content originator/editor but at least be able to comment on local sensitivities and customs.
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSLPEwvVvN0 "We never underestimate the importance of local knowledge. Which is why we have local banks staffed by local people..." Make sure you staff it right and at the very least have a local review. Doesn’t have to be the content originator/editor but at least be able to comment on local sensitivities and customs.
- In the end, if your strategy's right, the creation ought to be relatively straightforward. You make the decisions at the strategy stage to guide you further down the chain. So you produce it in the voice that you chose, you translate it or transcreate it appropriately, you get the right local people to check it for you. Curation in localisation is about ensuring your local content fits the needs of the local market. Sometimes the best content for the US isn’t the same as the best content for France, even if it’s translated well. And if your product is online, like eBay, for example, you need to make sure your content matches the local implementation.
- You also have to take note that it's not just about the words. Designers and developers need to be aware of localisation. If you take the decisions early and at the strategic level, you're less likely to get the issues at the end like "Oh, the text is too wide for the button" or "Can you make the translation shorter to fit the space?" The design needs to be flexible enough to cope with other languages or you just come up with another design, which brings its own maintenance issues. If you have video, do you subtitle, overdub, transcribe or re-record? Also, usage norms and behaviours are different across the world. What about cultures that read from right to left, top to bottom? Where colours mean different things to Western norms? Cannot assume that UX findings from Western research applies to Asia.
- You also have to take note that it's not just about the words. Designers and developers need to be aware of localisation. If you take the decisions early and at the strategic level, you're less likely to get the issues at the end like "Oh, the text is too wide for the button" or "Can you make the translation shorter to fit the space?" The design needs to be flexible enough to cope with other languages or you just come up with another design, which brings its own maintenance issues. If you have video, do you subtitle, overdub, transcribe or re-record? Also, usage norms and behaviours are different across the world. What about cultures that read from right to left, top to bottom? Where colours mean different things to Western norms? Cannot assume that UX findings from Western research applies to Asia.
- You also have to take note that it's not just about the words. Designers and developers need to be aware of localisation. If you take the decisions early and at the strategic level, you're less likely to get the issues at the end like "Oh, the text is too wide for the button" or "Can you make the translation shorter to fit the space?" The design needs to be flexible enough to cope with other languages or you just come up with another design, which brings its own maintenance issues. If you have video, do you subtitle, overdub, transcribe or re-record? Also, usage norms and behaviours are different across the world. What about cultures that read from right to left, top to bottom? Where colours mean different things to Western norms? Cannot assume that UX findings from Western research applies to Asia.
- You also have to take note that it's not just about the words. Designers and developers need to be aware of localisation. If you take the decisions early and at the strategic level, you're less likely to get the issues at the end like "Oh, the text is too wide for the button" or "Can you make the translation shorter to fit the space?" The design needs to be flexible enough to cope with other languages or you just come up with another design, which brings its own maintenance issues. If you have video, do you subtitle, overdub, transcribe or re-record? Also, usage norms and behaviours are different across the world. What about cultures that read from right to left, top to bottom? Where colours mean different things to Western norms? Cannot assume that UX findings from Western research applies to Asia.
- What if your local optimisation then takes you down a different route to the source site or other sites? Abandon alignment or accept sub-optimal position? If strategy is to keep all content aligned, good luck telling the local teams they can't optimise content to generate the most leads, sales, registrations, &c.
- This is an example of what happens if you get localisation wrong. Context: in Wales in the UK, they have an official dual language policy. In English we have 'No entry for heavy goods vehicles...' The person responsible for the copy on this sign emailed someone else for the Welsh translation which duly came back and was put on the sign. To conclude, localisation's hard. It's worth it - and if you don't, I remind you of the McDonald's stat. Make sure you think about it at the same time as your main content strategy, not as an add-on.
- This is an example of what happens if you get localisation wrong. Context: in Wales in the UK, they have an official dual language policy. In English we have 'No entry for heavy goods vehicles...' The person responsible for the copy on this sign emailed someone else for the Welsh translation which duly came back and was put on the sign. To conclude, localisation's hard. It's worth it - and if you don't, I remind you of the McDonald's stat. Make sure you think about it at the same time as your main content strategy, not as an add-on.
- This is an example of what happens if you get localisation wrong. Context: in Wales in the UK, they have an official dual language policy. In English we have 'No entry for heavy goods vehicles...' The person responsible for the copy on this sign emailed someone else for the Welsh translation which duly came back and was put on the sign. To conclude, localisation's hard. It's worth it - and if you don't, I remind you of the McDonald's stat. Make sure you think about it at the same time as your main content strategy, not as an add-on.