It's important to always remember that the culture of your target audience when you're considering localising your application. During this talk at ScotRUG, I highlighted common pitfalls and tried to encourage the audience to think a little differently when it comes to approaching a new market with their product. A blog post accompanies this on my website which will help make the slides make sense.

1. The culture of l10n
Ryan Stenhouse
@ryanstenhouse - http://ryanstenhouse.eu
http://www.freeagent.com
http://www.thehappygeek.co.uk

2. Originally I planed to
• Probably end up patronising everyone by a
really broad overview of Rails’
Internationalisation API..
• Give a really contrived example and try to
make a few points...
• Worry about pitching the level of this talk
just right so folks would get something out
of it...

3. What I will do
• Just jump straight to my point, after a flying
introduction
• Have some funny pictures to share
• Hopefully start a discussion around the
topic of localisation generally
• Drink beer

4. Flying intro!
• Go!

6. Understand the
culture!
• Google, eBay,Yahoo and plenty of others all
failed in China because they missed out on
this one important thing

7. Translation isn’t enough
• Language is only one part of a Country’s
cultural identity and there are other
conventions, particularly around buying and
selling that you need to understand.
• How you present your information is
equally as important as the language - and
you can be sure you’re not doing that right.

8. A Question
How do you say “please” to someone form a foreign
culture to you which has no concept of politeness that
you can see?

11. Politeness is an agreed way of behaving between
individuals within a culture.
The answer is “find out how to be polite”.

13. Colours Communicate
What do you think of?

14. Colours Communicate
What do you think of?

15. Colours Communicate
What do you think of?

16. Colours Communicate
What do you think of?
Danger?

17. Colours Communicate
What do you think of?
Danger? Money?

18. Colours Communicate
What do you think of?
Danger? Money?
Wealth and Luck

19. Colours Communicate
What do you think of?
Danger? Money?
Wealth and Luck Death

20. It’s not just Text!
l10n is a people problem.

21. Cheers.