GLOBALIZATION OVERVIEW

Competitive advantage across geographic and national markets…

Globalization – G11N (Internationalization (I18N) + Localization (L10N)) is the first and most important step to take your products and services to the world and to stand out from competition.

Internationalization and localization are means of adapting products such as publications, hardware or software for non-native environments, especially other nations and cultures.

Internationalization is the process of designing and modifying a software product, including online help and documentation, to facilitate localization. Internationalization of software typically involves writing or modifying code to make use of locale-aware operating systems services for appropriate localized text input, display, formatting and manipulation. The “18” in I18N indicates the number of letters abbreviated in the word Internationalization.

Localization is the process of modifying a software product to conform to the expectations of a given user community. The process involves translation and layout modification and prepares the product for a particular market. Localization is the process of adapting a product to meet the linguistic, audiovisual, technical and legal requirements of a foreign market (locale). The "10" in L10N indicates the number of letters abbreviated in the word Localization.

Types of G11N

• Monolingual: Enables the creation of localized versions of a product, where each localized version supports only its target locale
• Multilingualization: - Enables data processing and display in multiple languages and locales simultaneously, for example, mixing Chinese and Arabic text in a single document
• Multilocalization: Supports localization and data processing for multiple locales, where the actual locale is selected on execution of the product or at runtime
• Levels of Localization for each language
• User interface & content
• User assistance
• Help and Documentation

Importance of G11

Internationalization is the engineering and design aspect of creating a world-ready product. Internationalization work properly starts in the design phase and lasts until the product has been localized and released. Internationalization enables software products use across different languages or cultural barriers. The internationalization process is sometimes called translation or localization enablement. Enablement can include:

• Allowing space in user interfaces (for example, hardware labels, help pages, and online menus) for translation into languages that require more characters
• Developing with products (such as Web editors or authoring tools) that can support international character sets (Unicode)
• Creating print or Web site graphic images so that their text labels can be translated inexpensively
• Using written examples that have global meaning
• For software, ensuring data space so that messages can be translated from languages with single-byte character codes (such as English) into languages requiring multiple-byte character codes (such as Japanese Kanji)

The distinction between internationalization and localization is subtle but important. Internationalization is the adaptation of products for potential use virtually everywhere, while localization is the addition of special features for use in a specific locale. The processes are complementary, and must be combined to lead to the objective of a system that works globally. Subjects unique to localization include:

• Language translation,
• National varieties of languages (see language localization)
• Special support for certain languages such as East Asian languages
• Local customs,
• Local content
• Symbols
• Order of sorting
• Aesthetics
• Cultural values and social context

There are numerous benefits of G11N:

• Globalization of business to keep up with foreign and domestic competition
• International demand for a specific technical solution or a specific product
• Existence of a network of foreign partners for the supply of goods and services
• The user can create an Enterprise-wide Localization Methodology and Workflow
• Linguistic and Functional Testing
• Simultaneous release of multi-language products
• Software is made sensitive to target locale's culture as well as language

G11N Service offerings

• Make the solution localizable
• Cleaning the source code (for resource strings)
• Convert the database to MBCS/Unicode
• Modify the code for locale specific classes
• Re-factor if necessary
• Modify the presentation tier to keep the content separate from code
• Input forms, presented contents, reports etc
• Enhance the solution to handle multiple currencies, dates, time, measures etc… (if required)
• Developed internationalization coding practices and guidelines
• Converting the solution to specific locales/non-English target market
• Customer provides non-English content OR
• Partners for translation
• Globalization Testing
• Testing solution for localizability
• Testing for specific locales & languages

Localization Testing

Localization testing checks the quality of a product's localization for a particular target culture/locale.

The test effort during localization testing focuses on:

• Areas affected by localization, such as UI and content
• Culture/locale-specific, language-specific, and region-specific areas

The localization testing of the user interface and linguistics cover items such as:

• Validation of all application resources
• Verification of linguistic accuracy and resource attributes
• Typographical errors
• Consistency checking of printed documentation, online help, messages, interface resources, command-key sequences, etc.
• Confirmation of adherence to system, input, and display environment standards
• User interface usability
• Assessment of cultural appropriateness
• Checking for politically sensitive content

In addition, localization testing also includes:

• Basic functionality tests
• Setup and upgrade tests run in the localized environment
• Application and hardware compatibility tests according to the product's target region

Methodology

Aztecsoft has executed localization testing for several business applications and has developed a checklist to ensure quality deliverables.

Some common checkpoints for localization testing are:

• Use of IME for entry of foreign language strings
• Localization of installation wizard and welcome screen text
• Availability of hot key combinations for each window
• Shortcut key combinations for each menu and sub-menu items
• No duplicate assignment of hot keys
• No dead key combinations
• Localization of the “About” dialog box
• No “over-localization”: For example, words that should remain in English stay in English,
• Spell-check and grammar check of localized text
• Localization of settings and technical terms (for example, localization of the term RAM)
• Proper clipping of localized texts
• Help links continue to work correctly when localized
• No text wrapping, shrinking, or junk characters between valid localized text
• No misplaced or shifted radio buttons, input boxes or browse buttons
• Proper localization of error messages
• No text overflows, especially in dialog-box headers and footers
• Proper localization of “Help”
• Functionality problems are not detected as display problems. For example,
• Question marks (????) appearing instead of displayed text indicate problems in Unicode-to-ANSI conversion
• Appearance of random High ANSI characters (¼, «, †, ‰, ‡, etc.) instead of readable text indicates problems in ANSI code using wrong code page
• The appearance of boxes, vertical bars, or tildes [[], |, ~] indicates that the selected font cannot display some of the characters
• Correct use of double byte character sets (DBCS) for Japanese, Chinese and Korean languages. Also check Bi-directional languages (BiDi)
• Correctness of file paths where the path consists of DBCS, Unicode or MBCS
• Awareness of global political issues. If a local developer believes that a particular issue is required to be localized in a particular way, accept the recommendation even though it may not fit localization-testing rules. If still incorrect, the issue will be resolved as By Design

Aztecsoft understands the process and methodologies followed during the development cycles and based on these it has evolved and adopted industry wide best testing practices.