At the January chapter meeting, we looked at the challenge of internationalizing documentation with M. Katherine (Kit) Brown of Comgenesis LLC. Her presentation, she admitted, was a distillation of an 8-hour workshop, which meant that this was going to be even more of a crash-course than most chapter meetings.
She began by defining and discussing the differences between some familiar terms: globalization, internationalization, localization and translation.
Globalization happens at the corporate level, and aligns a product with a global product strategy.
Internationalization takes place on the technical side, creating processes that will enable products and documents to be customized for a specific locale.
Localization is the process of preparing a product and documents for use in a target language and culture.
Translation is the process of transferring information from one language to another.
After presenting these concepts, Brown discussed the key elements of a good internationalization process. These include explicit instructions and clear expectations, defined schedules and milestones, a documented process, and a change management system. The initial investment to establish these key elements will save time and money on projects marked for internationalization in the future.
The last third of the meeting was about the specific content challenges that technical communicators have to face when writing for an international audience. These include building a strong editorial process, information design that considers text expansion in various languages (those long German words can wreak havoc on line lengths!), ensuring consistency of terminology, eliminating references to gender and race, and avoiding embedding text in graphics. All these things require commitment, Brown pointed out, but little to no capital outlay.
A solid internationalization process can decrease time to bring a product to market, while increasing market share. It can reduce costs while improving the quality of both the source products and the localized products.
As Brown put it, it’s not rocket science. All it takes is awareness, preparation, teamwork, and attention to detail—practices that technical communicators have a lot of grounding in already.
Everyone left the meeting feeling a little more prepared to take on the world, one document at a time.
