Localisation best practices begin with the source

Photo credit: Rahel Anne Bailie

Copyright © 2016 Scroll LLP

A guide for product and project managers

CONTEXT AND ASSUMPTIONS

THREE THINGS

REMINDERS

RESOURCES

CONTEXT AND ASSUMPTIONS

Content is important

• Content helps customers understand your product, services, instructions, and ultimately your brand

• Content doesn’t fit the supply chain model• Content can’t be managed like data

Content is king

We mock bad translations into English

Just as they mock our bad translations (says “We recommend you wash your hands”)

Content is …

• The new “front door”• How visitors perceive our brand• How people understand what to do• How customers make decisions• Our way to brand differentiation

Lifecycle, not supply chain

The myth of the content supply chain

Source Assemble Organise Deliver Translate Deliver

The reality of the content lifecycle

• Structure/standards• Content model/types• Configure/component• Storage/federation

• Aggregate/syndicate• Transform• Present• Sunset/iterate

• Author/version• Import• Localise• Enhance

• Requirements• Budget• Governance• Iterations

Analysis Acquisition

ManageDeliver

Content is not data

Content is:

<tags> </tags>

Content is …

• Potential information• Human-usable, contextualised data• More context for localisation

12Data

DecemberContent

XmasInformation

Book travel early

Knowledge

12Data

ธนัวาคมContent

Wan Rattha ThammanunInformation

Prepare for touristsKnowledge

THREE THINGS

Manage source content well

• Is your content translation-friendly?• What controls are governing the source

content?• Is content using standards?

1

Translation-friendly content

Editorial standards

• Use plain language principles• Control the vocabulary• Avoid jargon, idiom, slang, euphemisms,

anglicisms, etc• Colours, gestures, images matter• Translation, localisation, transcreation• Test using Google Translate

Source content controls

Source control

• Create a superset of source content• Re-use that content across all outputs

Don’t be too granular – minimum sentence level is the usual recommendation

• Make utmost use of semantic structure and metadata tagging

• If possible, use a power editing environment (CCMS or HAT or XML editor)

Content standards

It’s all about interoperability• W3C Standards (Open Web Platform, Accessibility,

Semantic Web, Web of Devices)• OASIS Standards (DITA (Darwin Information Typing

Architecture), DocBook, XLIFF (XML Localisation Interchange File Format), CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Standard)

• Image standards – SVG• Microformats - schema.org• Metadata standards (RDF, SVG)• ISO standards (taxonomy, thesauri)• RosettaNet Standards (B2B Protocol, Document Exchange)

Processes are critical

• Use established translation workflows• The right type of content developer makes

a huge difference• Working within an Agile team

2

Translation workflows

Around the world in a day (simplified)

Into agency TMS

Machine translation

Post-editing by

translator*

Quality Assurance

Stored and available

Import to repository Export to

agency

* 2K words/day/translator

Content development

Content development map

Technical comms

Marketing writers

Web writers

UXers

Developers

User assistance

writers

Business comms

Journalists

Product managers

Content designers

Agile environments

Source content

• If you do Sprint 0, good time to get the story arc down (how many languages, devices, content connection points, etc)

• Run content creation in parallel with code creation

• Deliver in the same sprint so testing works on everything, including content

Localised content

• Encourage participation in sprints or have representation

• Send out source content on regular basis for localisation

• Build up the translation memory

• Deliver one sprint behind production of source content

• Push localised content back into the content repository

Agile content

Current project using Agile Our design team works in English, and the Agile developers work in English. The product itself is in another language that almost nobody on the team can read, so it doesn’t matter that the wireframes don’t have the final text, and that we often don’t have the final text before the story is signed off.

PROCESS: A writer provides the text by using a HAT (Help Authoring Tool), with attributes on the elements to identify which text block or string is which. A script ingests the HAT output and pushes it into the content-management system. The devs know which string to use because the writer updates the JIRA story with the attribute IDs. When the web app runs, it grabs the intended string from the CMS (which may vary, because we provide adaptive variations).

AUTOMATION: For the writer to get the proper text into the HAT can take up to two weeks, but the sprints are one week. This is because the remote colleagues are numerous and require this time for marketing and legal approvals (highly-regulated financial environment). QA often signs off with the placeholder text that has been put into the HAT, and later, when the series of approvals has arrived (through an automated plug-in), the correct text gets pushed without any further involvement from dev. So, not only doesn’t it matter that the wireframes don’t have the final text, we often literally don’t have the final text when the Agile story is signed off.

COMPLIANCE AND AUDIT: Because the content output is pushed into the CMS via a script (which triggers the HAT build), that meets compliance requirements, as there is no risk of others changing the approved text between the HAT and the end user’s screen.

Translation tools

• Content optimisation• Translation automation• Translation memory

3

Content optimisation

Optimising content quality

• Store content in respositories with rich editing environments

• Avoid copy-and-paste; transclude instead• Maintain consistency between structure,

grammar, punctuation, etc• Maintain a consistent tone and voice• Automate with content optimisation

software (acrolinx)

Translation automation

Automate the translation process

• Avoid FTP and other manual transfers• Use a TMS (Translation Management

System)• Automates the translation workflow• Automates the project management side

• Use machine translation followed by human post-editing

• If a “jisty” translation will do (think user-generated content), use translation codes

Translation memory

Translation memory helps you save

• Use a translation memory to reduce time and greatly reduce cost of translation

• Consolidate into a single memory, if possible (or isolate memory for marketing)

• Take ownership of the memory• Keep the memory updated

REMINDERS

Supply chain challenges

The need to manage the “complexity of ‘omnichannel’ selling and customer fulfilment”. More than half (55 per cent) said the demands of e-commerce and mobile-enabled consumers are increasing the number of stock keeping units they have to support. Almost 55 per cent reported they are building new distribution centres, and 48 per cent are building direct-to-customer fulfillment capabilities.

- CIPS

 

The need to continue to reduce costs while improving customer service and supporting expansion in new markets and product lines. Some 68 per cent of respondents said operating cost reduction is “very important”, compared with 64 per cent in 2012.

- CIPS

Multiple content challenges

• Localisation needs• Usage differences

(e.g. multiple device types)

• Omnichannel environments

• Rising importance of social

• Meeting growth opportunities

• Single language variants• Cross-market content• Localisation and transcreation

• Offering native languages in other markets

• Cross-border commerce adaptations

RESOURCES

Resources

Resources on Agile Content

• Lois R Patterson. Alyssa Fox on Targeted Content and Agile

• Larry Kunz. Technical Writing in Agile• Mary Connor.

How does Agile affect documentation?• James Turcotte.

DocOps: Intelligent Content for the Application Economy

• Patricia Gale. Parkour: Lessons in Agility

RAHEL ANNE BAILIEChief Knowledge Officer

Scroll (UK)

@ScrollUK

• UK’s only full-service content company• Provider of writers, editors, content designers• Content strategy, content engineering, IA and

taxonomy services• Training for content professionals

By email:info@scroll.co.ukrahel.bailie@scroll.co.ukBy telephone:UK +44 (0)203 318 1828 (office)UK +44 (0)7869 643 685 (mobile)

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Copyright © 2016 Scroll LLP