WEBSITE & SOFTWARE LOCALIZATION SERVICES

Sometimes the terms are used interchangeably, but they are not exactly the same. Professional translation services includes simply changing a message from one language into another. Localization includes translation, but it also involves taking a product—such as a software application or website—and making it usable and beautiful in a foreign language and culturally appropriate for a foreign target market. Besides just language, this process may affect visual design or technical issues of how the software or website is constructed.

To oversimplify, a website localization company translates websites. However, as explained in the Q&A above, localization includes much more than simply translating a message. Website localization services would include helping to choose a localization friendly CMS, design the URL structure, change the date and currency formats, and make decisions about many other elements. It might even include allowing for different payment methods that are popular in different locales or choosing different photos in order to not offend local sensitivities. As a web localization company, we guide web developers as they take these steps to truly localize their websites.

A software localization company translates software and makes it user-friendly for users in different locales. Different locales may require different currencies, units of measures, and number formats. Different languages may take up different amounts of space in the user interface or may even have to be displayed in different directions. Localizing your software doesn't have to be a mystery; IVANNOVATION has been doing professional software localization services for 20 years and has the expertise necessary to not only translate your software product correctly but also guide your developers as they make it useful in all of its supported languages.

Our project managers consult with your developers to ensure that the software application or website can be localized properly. After this technical step, we translate the text. We can return the text to you in the same format as what we received from you, formats such as HTML, XML, XLSX, DOCX, etc. For website localization services we can often make an automated connection between your content management system and our translation servers so that request and then publish translations with just the click of a button.

Great localizations take time. They require the work of expert linguists deliberating over every phrase, researching, and then proofreading. They may be able to do, say, 3,000 words per day, but that depends on many factors and can vary widely. It’s best to have a single linguist do the translations, but when speed is needed, we can allocate teams of linguists to speed up the process and then use automated tools to help enforce translation consistency. Pure machine translation can be nearly instantaneous, but it’s not recommended for publishing online. However machine translation with human post-editing can speed up localization while still getting expert linguist quality results.

People just like you have struggled to find quality localization. They try “free” translation from Google Translate or DEEPL and get embarrassed by the goofy results. They try hiring a cousin who studied a little Spanish and the results are either unnatural or inaccurate. They try Fiverr and get unreliable results, sometimes ok, sometimes terrible. However, at IVANNOVATION we hire only professional linguists, some with graduate degrees but all with professional qualifications and certifications. They are full-time linguists, not part timers who earn a little on the side. Further, most have worked for us for years, proving their quality work time after time. Finally, when expertise in a certain industry is required–such as IT or construction or pharmaceuticals–we use subject matter expert linguists to do the work. Accuracy is essential.

Localization involves translating all of the text used in a software interface, including the menu items, the buttons, and the alert messages. It also includes preparing the software to work properly in other languages. Here are some examples of what that might include. The character encoding needs to work with non-latin-script alphabets, like Hebrew or Japanese. First names and last names may need to be reversed for languages like Chinese. The software needs to be able to handle changes in date format, currency, units of measure, etc. The text strings need to be centralized in resource files and not mixed in with the computer code. These are just a few of the things that a localization engineer might consider during a software localization project. With all of the technical details of localization, it’s important to partner with people with the experience necessary to make it a success.

Localization development costs depend on how prepared for localization your software already is. It’s best to start the development of the software in the first language with an understanding of what will need to be done to localize the software later. If localization hasn’t been folded into the development process from the beginning, then localization may involve some catch up. Here are elements that may need to be changed. If your text strings are located in the code files with the computer code, you will need to take all of those strings out of the code and place them into language resource files. If your interface design doesn’t have enough room for languages that have longer words, you may need to adjust the design to accommodate longer text.

Regardless of whether your project is mobile app localization, ERP localization, or game localization, your goal is most likely for your software to have increased popularity in a foreign locale. To measure your ROI from localization, analyze your software sales or subscriber base before localization and then analyze those same numbers in the period after releasing your localized software on the market. You are sure to find greater popularity and higher user adoption from a software that is effectively localized into the local languages.

Every localization project is customized to your needs. We consider your purpose for localizing the software as well as the type of software, which may require industry specialists of some type, such as linguists specializing in logistics for logistics software. We also consider the technical details of the software and provide consulting on how to prepare the software for successful localization. For example, your developers may need to isolate all of the text strings in language resource files, or you may need to adjust field widths to accommodate longer words. At this stage we can provide a free pseudotranslation that will help you find any text that is missing from the language resource files. The next step of the website localization process is to begin software translation. This begins with exporting the language strings in their current format. After translation, you take the translated text files back in the same format. Finally, localization testing begins, in which users test the localized software to search for bugs or anything that doesn’t look or feel right. After everything looks good, the localized software can go live, sold on app stores, rolled out for the employees at your international subsidiaries, or downloaded by consumers.