Localization of Wireless Technologies

By Liesl Leary, ENLASO Corporation

The wireless industry is a rapidly proliferating and evolving global environment. Maintaining international competitive advantage in this relatively new industry demands an enterprise localization strategy that not only meets the requirements of local users, but also maintains interoperability with different technologies and manufacturers — while at the same time remaining scalable, efficient, reliable and secure.

Localization in the mobile world differs enormously from the traditional challenges of multilingual software, web, and documentation projects. Localization professionals are challenged with environments of constrained memory, CPUs, power reserves, user interfaces, input devices, bandwidth, and connection stability.

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Designing with Localization in Mind
Whether a global company is just developing a wireless product or already has a global-ready technology, it is critical to have a localization strategy. Different locales have vastly different (a) end-user preferences and requirements (b) technical requirements to support localized information, and (c) user interface requirements to present information appropriately. For example, the matrix of these three core requirements is completely different for the Japanese wireless market than that of the European market.

To prepare for a successful world release, internationalization and localization audits examine potential pitfalls, including regional issues, hardware, operating systems, and improper coding. Implementing localization technologies and standards enable the reduction of localization costs and faster time-to-market throughout all subsequent software, web, documentation, regulatory, marketing and global customer support efforts.

Global wireless projects typically include:

• Internationalization and localization analysis and consulting
• Localization and internationalization Engineering
• Localization of wireless software
• Localization of wireless web applications
• Multilingual user interface localization
• QA testing of localized wireless software and web applications
• Documentation translation & localization
• Marketing localization

Translation of Wireless Technologies
The accurate translation of wireless technology demands the efforts of linguistic experts with wireless subject-matter knowledge and experience. These technologies challenge linguists with the complexities and constraints of user interfaces, specifically with line and word-wrapping, text truncation, and the use of international icons. Text expansion occurs during translation for a variety of reasons: (a) many languages have equivalent words with far more characters than English (b) some languages tend to avoid the use of abbreviations (German, for instance) and (c) hyphenation and automatic line break issues may be quite different for every language. An accepted rule-of-thumb is to allow approximately 25 - 35% more physical space for languages such as German and Italian.

At the very least, linguistic experts should provide the language specialization of a native technical writer who can rephrase and sculpt text for user-friendly mobile translations. Along with an awareness of cultural differences and language subtleties, linguists must have experience in working with a localization process and team.

Localization of Wireless Software and Web Applications
Wireless technologies are not simply a scaled-down version of traditional wired devices and applications. Mobile web and software applications may include, but are absolutely not limited to: XML, JAVA, iMode, WAP, WML, HDML, cHTML, XHTML, J2ME, GSM, GPRS, CDMA, and CDPD. Flexible localization engineers will have to work through both commercial and proprietary environments to successfully implement language technologies. It is by no means uncommon in the industry to require complex scripts and technologies to extract and replace content for translation. Just as specialized linguists are required for wireless technologies, experienced engineers are pivotal to successfully negotiating the constraints of multilingual wireless products.

Testing of Localized Wireless Technologies
Testing is a critical part of any localization process, and it becomes more complicated when wireless applications involve myriad combinations of hardware and testing scenarios. Like wired technologies, mobile technologies require extensive quality assurance testing, both functionally and linguistically.

Functionality testing of localized wireless products can involve exhaustive combinations of hardware and multilingual environments. Functionality testing can be completed with the actual wireless devices or in concert with emulators. Emulators are devices and programs that simulate the environment and behaviors of another, helping to preview tasks that will run on an actual wireless device. If your application can be run on a device simulator, it is recommended that you have the application examined by testers in the various target locales.

Linguistic testing of localized wireless products is critical and any failure can negate any functionality and usability. A native speaking QA professional should perform linguistic testing with strong attention paid to character display problems, context of translations, truncations of strings, and end-user usability.

Conclusion
As the mobile/wireless industry is still a relatively new industry, a global strategy-more than ever, should involve an enterprise localization plan that not only meets the individual requirements of target markets, but also maintains efficient interoperability and scalability. Regardless of where the mobile technology is in the international product life cycle, implementing localization standards enable the reduction of localization costs and faster time-to-market throughout all subsequent software, web, documentation, regulatory, marketing and global customer support efforts.