Knowledge Base

This is a tip for maximizing the efficiency of translation for user facing content within your apps. In most applications, the 90/10 rule applies in that…

Traditional localization systems assume content is known ahead of time. That model breaks down in modern applications where content is generated dynamically at runtime. In these…

Just as you will need to write code to be global ready, it is also a good idea to choose a content management system that can…

Quite often a company has settled on one or more content management systems before they even think about localization. Sometimes they land on a natively multilingual…

Virtually every company I worked for made the mistake of not following internationalization best practices early on. Even if you don’t anticipate making your app or…

Most software companies start with product localization, which at a high level, involves integrating your translation management system with your code repository and deployment pipeline. This…

Many companies are rolling out AI first or AI augmented services that directly or indirectly interact with users. This presents some potentially thorny issues because LLMs…

It is not uncommon for companies to have a web property or service that can’t be localized easily, for example because it is hosted on a…

If your company offers a SaaS service, web application or reasonably complex mobile application, chances are good that you operate public or private REST APIs. These…

User Generated Content, E-Commerce & Other Scenarios Many of the articles in this knowledge base deal with scenarios around software localization and document translation where there…

One of the most important decisions you will need to make is to choose a translation platform that meets your current and future needs. All of…

The most successful companies I worked with did one very important thing long before they ever thought about formal localization. They designed the product so that…

Why AI products now see international demand years earlier, and the low-cost steps to take before it arrives.

As you expand internationally, you’ll want to look at supporting currencies and payment methods that are relevant to the regions you are targeting. While this may…

There are several schools of thought about how to manage feature releases across multiple languages. Each has benefits and drawbacks from a project management and customer…

Most localization problems aren’t caused by translation—they’re caused by decisions made long before anything is translated. This is why localization needs to be upstreamed into product,…

Chances are good that you have a catalog of videos for product demos, webinars, training material and so on. This asset class poses its own set…

This article is aimed at senior executives who are considering compliance and regulatory risks that they should be prepared for in the context of anticipated international…

Note: this article focuses on long-form web content : marketing site, help center, and landing pages. In-product localization and UI strings are covered in the engineering…

What to do first when you’ve been handed localization and have never done it before.

One of the things I recommend to clients is that they decouple adding new languages from regional expansion. Adding language support is often a pre-requisite for…

The founders and senior execs of emerging companies often struggle with this question because there are so many competing priorities within early stage companies. There are…

Quickly self-assess where your organization is at in terms of localization readiness and maturity,

The choice of which languages to target will vary for each company, but following is a good rule of thumb to use in putting together your…

This is intended as an exercise to help you understand roughly what you’ll need to plan for as you build out a localization program in three…

Measuring the direct ROI of localization is hard because, while it unblocks users, localization alone does not guarantee success in other languages and regions. There are…

At most companies, localization is a relatively small department that is backed up by a small army of vendors and freelancers. Whether you plan to build…

Just as you need to select translation technology to support localization, you'll also need to select language service providers (LSPs) who will do the majority of…

One of the questions I am asked most often is whether AI or machine translation can replace the need for human translators. The answer is yes…

As you expand your engineering, product and design team, consider language and cultural knowledge as part of the hiring process. Many software developers are bilingual, so…

Most of the companies I worked with didn’t really know who should own localization. Sometimes we would roll up to marketing, sometimes to product, sometimes to…