Agile localization: myth or reality?

I think many of those who are working in translation industry already got used to small chunks of work that need to be translated within short turnaround time. And buzzword “Agile” emerged as one of popular tendencies. What does it mean in terms of localization?

What is Agile?

Agile is development practice and methodology that focuses on frequent delivery of working software, continues changes, tight collaboration between team members. In agile, there are two-week sprints, after each sprint there is software release. Usually team members hold short stand-up meetings every day during which they discuss work progress, new and existing features, define what piece of work each person is responsible of. As a result, they achieve tighter communication between team members, better understanding of requirements and final goal, and more flexible development process.

The difference between traditional waterfall and agile model is that in the first case all software requirements are strictly defined before development starts and it is hard to change them in the process. And in agile, requirements are changing very frequently and they are adapted regularly to appropriate circumstances.

How localization can become part of agile development?

In terms of localization, agile is more challenging than traditional waterfall process when development took a few months or even year. After finalization of release stings were collected, externalized and sent for translation. Translators had enough time to familiarize with the source and references, software, app, game or web-site they’re working on.

In the case of agile, localization starts after each sprint and often during the sprint (when new approved and updated strings are sent automatically for translation). So it is important to build dedicated team of translators and editors who are trained to use appropriate style and terminology, familiar with the product. Oftentimes those people are responsible for linguistic testing before the release.

In agile development projects, the localization project manager shall take part in stand-ups so he or she can pay attention of team to localization plans, work closely with developers, product managers and copywriters on issues that arise.

Localization teams should be trained in agile so they know its main principles and act accordingly for better collaboration with other team members and achieving more efficient results.

Moreover, localization process and tools need to be able to handle rapid iteration and support removal of obsolete content, frequent updating of refactored code.

Agile localization benefits and challenges

In my mind, no matter which parts of localization you’re involved in – management, development, translation – agile should be perceived as opportunity, not as threat. It allows to have a better localization process for managers; to have more constant and predictable flow of work, to work closely with developers and copywriters for translators and editors; to have more efficient collaboration and faster fixing of localization issues for developers.

When set up correctly, agile localization process can bring substantial benefits: new strings and updates are pushed automatically and you don’t need to worry about duplicated strings, reviewing of matches and manual extraction of strings. Translators can automatically receive notifications if there is a need to translate new strings or they can visit your “translation center” from time to time to check for updates. But in order to maximize benefits, your team has to invest time and efforts to set up processes and tools appropriately in the early stage.

Early sprints can be used for collecting key terms, creating definitions and translations of terminology, recommending improvements to the source text and the overall style of authoring. Special attention should be paid to controlled authoring (usage of controlled language) because language consistency increases reuse opportunities and therefore reduces localization cost.

Also, best practice is to create translation memory, localization kits, and references so you can identify obsolete strings quickly, and have materials to rely on for quick updates and validation.

Because software is changing frequently, UI and help materials should be updated accordingly and translated into multiple languages. In this case, it is important to have dedicated translation team (of in-house translators, freelancers or agency) so they can work on translation immediately after new strings are ready so software, app or game is simultaneously shipped multilingual.

A good practice during agile localization is to perform linguistic testing after translation of new resources is ready. It can help to find translation mistakes prior to release and to catch some functional bugs and bring them to developers’ attention.

In my opinion, there are many “shades” of the so-called agile localization and it is hard to find pure implementation of agile methodology during localization.

But nevertheless, agile opens many opportunities for all localization players. It just requires many efforts to gain more productivity and efficiency.

Image source: Microsoft

Nowadays context is king, especially if we talk about localization of apps, software, games, websites and web services. The more context translator has, the more accurate translation will be. Often translator has to work with source strings extracted in the CAT-tool only with no or little context. Fortunately, more and more localization PMs and product managers, that are responsible for translation and localization, understand the importance of context. So in what ways can they provide more contexts and give a hand of help to their translators and editors? Let’s name a few.

1. Comments and screenshots

Of course, comments that can display in translation environment and screenshots of new functionality can clear the situation. Often (in the case of games translation, for example) screenshots are provided in Excel sheet alongside with source phrases and sentences.

2. Providing a feedback loop

It’s good to have some kinds of Q&A forms or communication system (for example, online shared spreadsheet, build-in form or shared database) so translators can share their concerns there and receive answers from copywriters, localization PMs, developers and product managers quickly. In this way, the feedback can be implemented before the translation is sent back to the client.

3. Introducing variables (gender, plural)

Sometimes copywriters and developers don’t take into account that, unlike English which is an “analytic” language where sentence meaning is defined by syntax (i.e. words order), many languages, like Russian, Ukrainian, are “flective” languages where meaning of sentence is defined by changing words (morphology). Therefore, you must pay attention to stuffs like suffixes and prefixes. So introduction of gender and plural variables is very important to get natural flawless translation.

There are many tools and methods that can help programmers with that. For example, the ICU Syntax allows to translate phrases into multiple languages while taking account of linguistically appropriate changes for gender and number. The exact rules of using which numbers or forms depend on the language in use. See the language plural rules page on the Unicode site for the full list of languages and their plural forms.

4. Naming of files that provides context

Naming of resource files logically, for example, “profile_page”, “settings”, “payment_info” can give translators additional contexts. Besides, developers or copywriters can indicate in the resource file name if that is a desktop or mobile application, so translators can allow longer translation or shorter one appropriately.

5. Naming of other resources

Above principle also applies to naming of other resources. In the resource ID or message ID, project owners can indicate additional information telling translators where certain string will be displayed. This is especially helpful if there are similar phrases, like “Ask” buttons, that are displayed in a few different places and can be translated differently (as verb and noun). Using unique string ID, PMs can indicate where those phrases belong.

6. Reference materials

Reference materials, such as glossaries, style guides, and brand guidelines, can provide translators helpful information like preferred translations of terms, tone of voice, description of product and its features…etc. To fully take advantage of these benefits, PMs have to ensure the reference materials are current and updated regularly.

7. Localization and internationalization trainings, product trainings, style trainings

Ideally, these different trainings can be provided by the leading linguist, localization PM, product manager or developers. During those trainings, translators can get more in depth knowledge of localization and internationalization processes and peculiarities (for example, formats of gender and plural forms). They can also communicate interactively with editors to work on mistakes and improve general knowledge of the product and tone of voice.

8. In-context translation and “diving” into the context

Most of the time, translators have to work with anonymous strings in a translation tool without looking at the actual product, which increases the chance of contextual errors. Luckily, there are WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) translation tool, plug-ins and modules that allow translators to do their works on actual live web pages now. In this way, translators will know immediately if their translations break the site’s design, saving much time during the quality assurance process.

9. Linguistic and localization testing

One of the main stages of localization is linguistic and localization testings that are often performed in-house or allocated to external resources. It can be done in a form of live product review or, for example, parallel screenshots review.

While localization testing focuses to verify correct functionality, appearance and completeness of the localized product, the main goal of linguistic testing is to ensure the correct language rules are being used. Linguistic testing helps to find linguistic errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
During localization testing, one can find inconsistent terminology, cosmetic errors, such as wrong text justification, stacking of elements, cutting off the text…etc. Also, the functionality of product is verified and errors in text adoption can be located. For example, a part of text is not displayed, the selected font is not supported, original text is displayed instead of translation or the wrong language is displayed…etc.

Oftentimes manual localization testing can be replaced by automated localization testing that is run by scripts and it’s a more efficient method when a product is localized into many languages.

10. Editor’s feedback

Efficient cooperation with editors and reviewers is very important to preserve the high quality of translation. Editors can provide their feedback in the form of weekly/monthly/quarterly feedbacks and error analysis, comments to projects, immediate reaction to obvious mistakes or trainings…etc.

Of course, taking steps mentioned above requires much time and efforts from localization PMs, product managers or project owners but it’s a good investment that will definitely pay off in long run. High quality of translation is a common goal for localization projects managers, translators, editors, testers, developers, copywriters so thorough localization and internationalization planning and implementation is vital if you want to expand your product into new markets and achieve great success.

Image source: HubSpot

Marketing and Localization 

Localization is a complex process involving many stakeholders in the company: developers, testers, product team, marketing team (often in-country), of course localization and internationalization team, including localization project manager(s), in-house/freelancers and editors etc.

In trying to maintain a single, focused message globally, in-house marketing team often steps in during the process of final quality review, setting up/changing translation of core terminology, and organizing in-country events. Different companies have different models of marketing team involvement. Some, like Adobe, prefer more centralized approach when regional offices have to adhere to general brand guidelines but they can provide feedback on the source and create their own content. In other cases, regional offices cooperate directly with translation and localization vendors.

In fact, working with in-house marketing team could be challenging sometimes. They can, for example, change translation of some terms without coordination with the localization manager, so this leads to inconsistency in terminology which is important for quality localization. In this case, severe discussions may arise between terminologists and in-house marketers. The best way to avoid this is to settle common terminology sheet/database, agree on translation of main terms ideally during the start of localization process, and implement changes simultaneously.

As you can tell, working with marketing team requires a lot of diplomacy and good communication skills. Sometimes they can point out that translation sounds not natural enough for native speakers (or even unacceptable for the target market) and propose more “fluent” variants, which are often inconsistent with other materials, guidelines and terminology. So you have to find common ground with them and work out variants that suit both sides.

There are also cases when, for example, some marketing materials (videos, ads, presentations etc.) were translated by in-house team and sent for review to external/internal translation teams, and editors become furious when see results of work with inconsistent terminology, not grammatically correct phrases, inappropriate use of punctuation…etc. And there can be long battles on the right choice. Again there should be mutual agreement reached between the teams.

Other way to control quality of translations is to involve SME – subject-matter experts. They are often in charge of the final review stage of localization projects, closely working with localization project managers and language leads. SMEs ensure that translations are not only of the highest quality in linguistic terms, but technically and legally accurate. Their main purpose is to review translations, ensuring technical content is translated correctly; terminology is adopted in accordance with glossaries and legacy content. Ideally, SMEs should be based in the country of origin, and in touch with latest trends when it comes to local language.

Besides moderating content on forums with local clients/users and creating local content (copywriting tasks), subject-matter experts can provide quality review, knowledge of appropriate terminology, and updates on legislative developments. Therefore, involving SMEs in translation projects is an important step in ensuring the highest quality translation, especially in highly specialized domains like life science, IT, games, electronics, machinery to name a few.

SMEs not only provide precious feedback to translators and editors, but also can perform industry trainings to improve translations. Yet despite these benefits, you should be aware of some potential pitfalls during the collaboration with SMEs. Since they are more concentrated on the “technical” correctness of translation, they can often ignore consistency, grammar and punctuation rules when rewriting content or making changes in it. By paying more attention to these areas, you can spot and correct potential problems ahead of time.

So working with marketing teams and subject-matter experts is an important step in ensuring the highest quality and correctness of translations both from linguistic and technical sides. But on the other hand, it is like balancing on the rope with continues discussions, feedbacks and changes. You have to be more patient, diplomatic and open to other people suggestions, as well as educate them on common translation and localization processes and best practices. Just remind them that you share the same goal – conveying massage to local users so they can’t even suspect that it was originally created in other language.

Image source: Flickr