2. i18n? L10n? g11n?
• Internationalization – design so that it can be adapted
• Localization – translate and adapt designed software to specific
region or language
• Globalization - (internationalization + localization)
4. Design aspects to consider when doing
internationalization of a product:
• User interaction (how a user will be interacting with your product)
• Currency is hard coded?
• Data formats are hard-coded?(01/12/2016 or 12/01/2016?)
• Fixed length GUI screens or dialog boxes, read-and-print messages?
• ASCII code or character constraints?
• Slang? Technical jargon?
• String operations like concatenation or substring search is present?
• Diagrams and images have embedded translatable text?
5. Design aspects to consider when doing
internationalization of a product – ctn.:
• Are icons, bitmaps, screens, dialog boxes are separated from the code
and stored in resource files?
• If the code uses scrolling of text – do the screens/dialogs allow for
provisions for direction change in scrolling such as top to bottom,
right to left, bottom to top, left to right? Arabic vs. English
6. Fake language testing
• Helps simulating the functionality of the product for different
language, using software translators.
Pig Latin (single-byte fake language)
Wide Latin (double-byte fake language)
RPx
mutator
7. Fake language testing objectives
• Software functionality is tested for European single-byte language
(Pig Latin)
• Software functionality is tested for double-byte language (Wide
Roman)
• Ensure all strings are displayed properly on the screen
• Ensure that screen width, size of pop-ups, and dialog boxes are
adequate for string display with the fake languages
9. Localization
This most time-consuming and expensive part is. Localization may
include:
• Subtitles or dubbing for video, voice-over
• Altering images that contain text to contain text or generic icons
• Different translation length and different character size (Chinese,
Korean, Japanese) can cause layout problems
• Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese
• Formatting of numbers or date and time format (thousand is 1.000 or
1,000?)
10. Localization – cnt.:
• Writing direction (left-to write, right-to-left), for example Arabic language is
written from right to left, unlike English. Display problems might ensue
• Different characters/set of letters, i.e. वह, ńźŁę, äöüß
• Complex text layout where characters change shape according to context
• Capitalization
• Different numeral systems
• Different pluralization rules may complicate programs that dynamically
display numerical content
• Different punctuation, e.g. “” in English and <<>> in French
• Keyboard shortcuts
12. National conventions, e.g. Between US and
Europe
• Paper size
• Telephone formats
• Postal address format, postal codes
• Currency symbols and their position
• Systems of measurements
• Battery sizes
• Voltage and current standards
13. Legal compliance
• Disclaimers required
• Different consumer labelling requirements
• Regulations on encryption
• Compliance with internet censorship
• Requirements for accessibility
• Collecting different taxes/custom duties
• Government assigned numbers have different formats
14. Differences in culture:
• Local holidays
• Personal name and title conventions, honorific, prefix, suffix
• Aesthetics
• Colour symbolism
• Ethnicity, clothing and architecture of locations pictured
• Local customs and conventions (taboos, blood type superstitions in
Japanese culture, local religions, astrological signs)
