K International plc. — Translation Services, Interpreting and Multilingual Design

Providing web translation or localisation is a challenging business. Not all websites are created or engineered equally and there is also a lot of competition.

Websites typically come in many flavours, utilising various technologies. They may contain just a few pages or provide dynamic content from a database.

In all cases, it is important to plan for localising your website. The earlier in the process that translation is considered, the more likely it will be that the localisation will be smoother and less costly.

Here are some suggestions for anyone looking to translate their web site.

• Make sure that your web developers know that you would like your web site available in different languages.
  When discussing your web project with your developers, discuss the options for a multilingual site. An e-commerce solution will have many more factors to consider than a small brochure site.

• Ask your developers to document the website and provide a localisation kit.
  The less engineering, text extraction and testing that needs to be completed the better. If your web developers can put together clear documentation about exactly what needs localising, we can provide you with a quicker quotation, faster turnaround and less questions!
• Know your market.
  Localising your site suggests that you can do business in that market and/or language. Consider what plans need to be met so that you can respond to customers who contact you in their own language. Emails in one language may need to be routed to a different office for instance. Alternatively, communications can be forwarded to K International to translate directly.
• Testing is not an option.
  Extensive testing is essential for larger websites. Testing can be split into different areas. Our engineers will test sites on a selection of browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. Small screen testing and engineering can be carried out for hand-held telephony platforms like Apple's iPhone. Additionally, our professional teams can carry out extensive linguistic testing ensuring that the site is working not just on the development server but on the host too.
• Animations and static images need editing.
  Editing or localising animations and images can be made easier if you can supply the source files. Flash animations for example are published to the web as a .SWF file but the editable source file has a .FLA extension. See the examples below.