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Globalization
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What Global Markets Mean to Technical Communicatorsby Barbara J. Miller Part 1 If any of us work for companies that market products to international companies and consumers. Although translating documents makes good business sense, in addition many countries have laws dictating that a company cannot ship a product into that country without supplying documentation in the native language.This two-part article describes a typical translation process and provides examples from my recent experience at QUALCOMM, Inc. translating documents into Russian. The process requires keeping the international user in mind during development, choosing and using a translation company, reviewing the translation, and handling production. This first part covers the development process, including hardware, software, and the supporting literature. Development Process It is not cost effective to redesign hardware, recode software, and rewrite documentation for each country where a company wants to sell its product. Starting with a universal design and translating text is the least expensive way to go. But simply translating a document is not enough. To make products more acceptable in other countries, we want to globalize and localize them. Globalizing is designing hardware, software, and the supporting literature with a global audience in mind. Localizing is adapting the product and supporting literature to a specific country’s environment. Keeping the international user in mind is not just the task of the writer. It’s every team member’s job: the project lead, developers, engineers, and the manufacturer. As the writer on the team, you must help keep the team focused on the international user. Hardware Designing hardware for a global market means accounting for the differences between products used in the United States and those used in other countries. It means using metric sizes for chassis, screws, bolts, and power cords and customizing the power plugs for each country. It’s specifying universally available installation and maintenance tools and supporting equipment, such as extra cabling and backup batteries. It's also localizing the names of standard tools. For example, a Philips-head screwdriver is known as “a cross-shaped head” in France, Spain, Italy, and Russia; a “star head” in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway; and plus (+) in Japan. We also need to globalize product labels. To minimize translation, use symbols and icons instead of words and make sure they are universally understood. In designing the hardware chassis for a recent product, we replaced all the English words with icons familiar to field engineers. If you have printed labels on the equipment that must be translated, remember to leave room for text expansion because most languages take more space than English. Short words may need two to three times the amount of space than that needed for the English equivalent. For example, “power switch” is “der Wechselschalter” in German. Software Designing software for a global market can be a challenge. The goal is to have the application support different locales without modifying the source code. This means making sure that the legal number of characters is not too restrictive in the underlying code. Some languages, such as Russian, use double-byte characters. And don’t hard-code translatable text. If you’re not sure what needs to be done, have your translation/localization service review your application. As with hardware, the software interface must be universally understood and designed to minimize translation. Use icons, symbols, and graphics wherever possible. But, again, make sure they are universally understood. For example, many email programs use a rural mailbox with a flag as an icon. Many countries don’t use mailboxes, so this icon for email would be meaningless to them. Don’t forget to allow for text expansion in screens, messages, and prompts. If you’re not sure if your software interface will be translated, allow extra space just in case. Supporting Literature Designing and writing supporting literature for a global market generally means translating it into other languages. It also means globalizing and localizing documents. If the product itself is globalized, then its supporting literature will reflect that. To localize documents, get rid of their “American accent” by eliminating jargon and American idioms and metaphors. Be aware of cultural differences when choosing graphics and colors. The goal is for readers not to know they are reading a translation. The goal of preparing a document for translation is to make it easier on the translation service, which saves your company money. When preparing documentation for translation use graphics when appropriate, design for text expansion, and write for translation. Using graphics means fewer words to translate. When preparing graphics, allow for text expansion on the callouts. If possible, overlay the callouts within your desktop publishing software rather than placing them in the graphic itself. Alternatively, you can number the graphic parts and put the corresponding callouts in a legend. Design the document so text expansion doesn’t affect the page layout. Most translated documents will be 1.3 times the size of the original English version. Text expansion can substantially affect tables, causing awkward hyphenation and one-page tables to run over onto a second page. Design for expansion by making table cells at least twice as large as the English text and resist the temptation to tweak the text to fit. To make documents easier to translate, use simple, clear language and consistent terminology, and minimize abbreviations and acronyms. Ambiguity is the main problem in technical translations from English. Because many English words can be nouns, verbs, or adjectives, avoid modifier strings and use articles (the, a, an) and prepositional phrases to clarify. Other localization issues include contact information. Our much used toll-free 800/888 numbers are not always supported outside the United States. You need to provide a country-specific toll-free number or list the regular 10-digit number. Once reached, make sure the support desk can handle different languages. Next month I will focus on qualifying and working with a translation company, reviewing and “proofing” the translation, and handling production logistics. Comments?
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