The Nielsen Norman group offers “E-commerce User Experience: Design Guidelines for International Users” (pdf, 2007). You can read about and download these guidelines. There is a charge for the download.
Successful internationalization does more than prepare a website for deployment across cultures and in different languages. There are a number of ways you can optimize your website for search in different regions, where language and culture affect the way people look for information. Read more in “Internationalizing websites for search success” in the December 2009 issue of Tekom’s TC World.
In January the Shenzhen Association for Quality and the China office of the American Societ for Quality held a quality forum in Shenzhen, China. The forum invited participants to learn about quality development. Approximately 300 attendees heard Kevin Wu, ASQ China general manager; Peter Shi, ASQ member and employee at Nokia Siemens Networks Corp.; and Lestie Carey, organizational change specialist share their experiences. Learn more about the forum on the ASQ website.
SCMLA 67th Annual Convention, October 28-30, 2010
Sheraton Forth Worth Hotel and Spa
Fort Worth, Texas, USA
For more information vist http://www.ou.edu/scmla/
For information on the technical writing and other sessions, download http://www.ou.edu/scmla/2-25-10.doc
7-9 June 2010
Hotel Maritim ProArte, Berlin, Germany
Ulrich Henes and Donna Parrish are finalizing the program for Localization World Berlin and will let us know when the program is published. Get a first look at parts of the great program being planned. There is an ad for the conference listing some of the program offerings; see it before it appears in print.
Visit http://localizationworld.com for details as they are available.
A Facebook site announces the forthcoming English-language translation competition held by the European Commission for EU nationals who translate into English. You must have a Facebook account to see this site. The purpose of the competition is to recruit English-language translators into the EU institutions.
For a thorough explanation of the essentials of Unicode and encoding, visit “The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!).” This is on the site of a programmer who engages visitors in translating articles. Available translations are listed on the sidebar of the home page.
If you spend a few minutes on delicious.com, you can be rewarded with insights about resources in internationalization and localization, as well as who is active in the community. Explore one user’s links on web localization and then explore some other related searches to discover this world for yourself.
If your organization does business in more than one part of the world, your web team faces the challenge of internationalization and localization of the website.
Internationalization refers to making a product ready for use throughout the world, and localization refers to making a product ready for use in a particular geographic area. For a website, internationalization requires making the code work worldwide, especially to support presenting the site in multiple languages, and developing a design and content for audiences with different cultural expectations.
Several articles are available to help meet these challenges. Four are presented here.
Several basic tips for internationalizing code are presented in Implementing Websites For Internationalization.
If you are providing a website in multiple languages, it’s desirable to avoid creating and maintaining multiple versions of the site. Internationalize JSP-based Websites presents one method.
A design blog addresses the challenge of providing a way for users to change to their preferred language. The author notes there is no standard interface for this. For details, visit Design Examples of Website Internationalization and Localization.
Creating content for readers worldwide is the focus of 7 Easy Tips to Internationalize Your Website. This is part of a larger guide with many resources, Culture Customized Content.
GALA is offering webinars of interest, including one by SIG members Hans Fenstermacher and Aki Ito.
Setting up Localization Collaboration in a Global Market
Thursday, 4 March, 11:00 EST
Sneak preview for the GALA 2010 workshop by Jean-Luc Mazet (Hewlett-Packard)
http://www.gala-global.org/gala-webinar-setting-localization-collaboration-global-market
Easy Translation Management with memoQ 4.0
Thursday, 11 March, 11:00 EST
Tool Demonstration by Istvan Lengyel (Kilgray Translation Technologies)
http://www.gala-global.org/gala-webinar-easy-translation-management-memoq-40
Managing Artwork Localization and Versioning of Language by Artwork
Thursday, 25 March, 11:00 EDT
Tool Demonstration by Luke Alexandre (StorePOINT International)
http://www.gala-global.org/gala-webinar-managing-artwork-localization-and-versioning-language-artwork
Prague Meeting Primer: Taking Stock of Your Business
Thursday, 8 April, 11:00 EDT
Primer for the GALA 2010 workshop,
“Not Your Same Old Differentiators: How LSPs Can REALLY Stand Out”
by Gordon Husbands (Wordbank), Hans Fenstermacher (TransPerfect / Translations.com) and Aki Ito (TOIN Corporation)
http://www.gala-global.org/gala-webinar-taking-stock-your-business
Effective Localization Workforce Management
Thursday, 22 April, 11:00 EDT
Presentation by John Watkins, ENLASO Corporation
http://www.gala-global.org/gala-webinar-effective-localization-workforce-management
