Local is more than language IT Training

by Clive Shepherd
July 2002.

If e-learning is to fulfil its potential, it can't confine itself to English-speaking students. Clive Shepherd examines the growing importance of localisation.

"According to the Old Testament, and for the sake of a good story assume it's true, there was a time when the people of the word spoke with a single tongue. Sharing a common vision, they started to build a tower - which would help them all to come closer to heaven. The project was a fantastic success.

However, God was uncomfortable at the prospect of so much unwanted company, so he took action, striking down the people and causing them to speak in a myriad of different tongues. Work on the project then became impossible, with no one able to understand what anyone else was talking about - it was like a meeting between HR and IT people. At that moment, the localisation industry was born.

The engineers of Babel locked themselves away in what was left of the tower to find a solution to the nightmare of these multiple languages. But the problem they faced kept getting harder, as the peoples of the world developed in every imaginable way. In the end, language was the least of their difficulties - and these problems are still challenging e- learning publishers today...

When going gets tough, the tough seem to speak louder - like most English tourists when faced with trying to communicate in Europe. But if e-learning executives are tempted to follow suit when confronted with the localisation bill, they will find their users can switch away from their content at the click of a mouse, without any feelings of disloyalty...

A study by management consultancy Aberdeen Group found that, on average, users spend up to twice as long at a site, and are four times as likely to buy something from it, if it is presented to them in their language. So once you have accepted the primacy of presenting content in the local language, how much further does the process have to go?

The answer is a lot further than just the text. Sarah Poynton is business development manager for EpiCentre, the localisation and testing company that forms part of Epic Group: 'Text will form a major part of the content, but is often just the start. Graphics often have to be replaced, not because of any textual content, but so that they are more credible in the country concerned. Even such basics as the ethnic or gender balance of graphical characters might have to be altered to reflect local realities.'...

So how exactly do you localise content? Poynton believes the three phases are translation, re-integration and language testing: 'After evaluating the product with the client, the first task is translation of all these assets, right down to error messages. If the content isn't already separated out, we might go through the original product and strip it out to form a script that the translators can work with. When it's translated, we, or our client, have to re-integrate it with the software engine to create a completely new localised product.'

Is that the end of the story? Not for EpiCentre, which has the largest testing centre in Europe. 'We use only qualified testers, trained by ourselves, or those accredited by the Information Systems Examination Board,' says Poynton. 'To test localised products, we need the same degree of language skills that we needed for translation. Of course, the golden rule is never to use the same people for translation and testing.'

In fact, EpiCentre needed all its skills to satisfy a recent client, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Planet Britain is a multimedia CD used to illustrate contemporary life in the UK - such as politics, the economy, industry, fashion, music and the Arts - to people all over the world. EpiCentre carried out full localisation of the CD into German & Japanese. According to Birgit Ihlau, from the British Embassy in Berlin: 'We use the CD regularly and successfully in Germany as a very helpful source of information.'...

Although IT professionals will be looking for an automated solution - machine translation perhaps (the use of computers to translate documents automatically) - the technology has suffered from exaggerated claims and impossible expectations.

One apocryphal story tells of a US military system that was designed to translate Russian into English, which is said to have rendered the famous saying: 'The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak' into 'The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten.'

So my advice is to buy shares in localisation companies now - their future looks assured and the demand is going to be high.'"