Internationalization

Globalization(G11N)

 Globalization addresses the business issues associated with taking a product global.  Organizations must account for a number of business issues if they are to succeed in international markets: Local Languages, currencies, business practices, technical requirements and cultural preferences as well as marketing and sales and technical support for local markets.

Internationalization (I18N)  The process of architecting a product so it can handle multiple languages and cultural conventions without the need for re-design.

Internationalization (I18N)  Internationalization(i18n), depicts the practice of designing & developing an application, product or document in a way that makes it easily localizable for target audiences that vary in culture, region, or language.

Internationalization (I18N)  Internationalization(i18n) takes place at the level of program design and engineering.  I18N aims at separating Core application code from dynamic content containing Culture specific data, such as text strings on the UI.  Following i18N in software development ensures that minimal changes are required while modifying for different languages, writing systems, regions. In nutshell internationalization can be seen as an architectural issue.

Why Internationalization  Empowering users to access information anywhere, anytime through any device.  Research shows that users are more likely to make purchases when the communication is in native language.

Internationalization Considerations  Character set and encoding  Specifying the language of content, using language tags in Mark up etc..  Handling Messages, Strings, styling etc.  Writing Systems  Locale data such as dates, formatting of numbers, currencies  Culture Specific sensitive information

Localization (L10N)  Involves taking a product and making it linguistically and culturally appropriate to the target locale (country/region and language) where it will be used and sold.  It also includes the production of help and online or printed documentation in the foreign language.

Localization (L10N) Considerations  Identify ‘Translatable’ and ‘Non-translatable’ strings  Many languages can take at least 30% more space, Design should be compatible, or else the UI may have to be redesigned .  Tool -

(HI) &

- customer (EN)

Localization (L10N) Considerations  Switching between Language in UI  Bitmap / Vector fonts  Avoiding use of text or numbers in graphics.

Localization (L10N) Considerations  Avoiding use of metaphors which may not have equivalence in other languages  Acronyms, Abbreviations.  The same application functions do not necessarily apply to all cultures.

Layout Considerations

 A Height of glyphs may vary  Word length may vary across languages

Aspects of locale

 Names & Titles  Sorting by Last Name/First Name  Surname not always in last  Different addressing modes  Dear-

Aspects of locale  Calendars  No abbreviations in use for month names in Hindi  Numeric  Number of digits in a group (In English it is 3 while for other languages its different 1,23,456)  Group separator (In English ‘,’, but ISO uses space, and some locales use ‘.’ or none,  Decimal separator ‘.’, ‘,’

Aspects of locale

 Date and Time formats,  Date separators (/ , - , .)  Addresses  Order of information cant be fixed  i.e. City followed by State etc

Aspects of locale

 Currencies, Paper size, Weights & measures  Different languages use different size to express currencies (INR/$/Rs./ £)  Position of currency differs (in beginning or last)  Different ways of expressing Rs. 1000 OR Rs. 1000/- or INR 1000, 1000 Rupees, 1000 रपये , र 1000.00 (Indian currencies are written with decimal precision (e.g. 2 digits after the decimal point for paisa)

Cultural Aspects       

Icons, symbols and images Colors, myths, beliefs and feelings Emphasizing has different meaning in different languages Humour (No humor is internationally acceptable) Geographical & environmental effects Customs & traditions Social Security Numbers

Cultural Aspects  A image can say thousand words.  Images of people or body parts such as hands  Considered inappropriate in some cultures  What skin color to use?  localized People Images for each country