How to do i18n to help l10n?

Better and earlier i18n implementation and testing can help l10n in the following ways:

1. To reduce translation cost: If engineers can use proper English
messages, reuse previous messages, use common messages across
components or products, or don't modify messages frequently, then the
translation team would be able to leverage previous translations
easily, or even can do machine translation while not reducing the
quality of translations.

2. To improve translation quality: If engineers can use consistent
terms among UI, error messages, online help and even help technical
writers in the documentation, and provide detailed explanation of new
terminologies, then translation vendors or l10n engineers will be able
to better translate all contents properly and consistently.

3. To reduce l10n testing efforts and cost: If engineering team have
clear  i18n design documentation,i18n test plan, test cases, test
results or reports before translation and l10n is started, then l10n
team would be able to leverage most of them and do efficient and
effective l10n testing. Early i18n testing can avoid duplcated common
i18n problems found during l10n testing in many languages.

4. To improve the l10n quality: Early i18n testing can make sure all
critical i18n problems are resolved, the i18n problems found during
l10n testing may not be fixed before GA because usually it's too late
in a release.

Posted at 10:26PM Oct 23, 2006 by byuan in Globalization  |  Comments[0]