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Top 10 Ways to Reduce Localization and Translation Costs

Nabil Freij

President, founder and owner, GlobalVision International, Inc.

Some say that the best way to reduce localization costs is by avoiding localization altogether. Yet companies with a global vision have realized that to compete in a global economy, both they and their products have to speak their clients’ language.

Once you decide to localize for a certain market, mea­sures should be taken to make localization tasks as effi­cient and effective as possible. Throwing the localization project over the wall to your distributors or just any third party is not the best way to go. You should be working with professionals that know how to reduce your localiza­tion costs, without sacrificing quality.

1.      Correct localization process

Every localization project begins with a spec and a plan. The spec is like a bill of material that references and quantifies all the components requiring localization. This includes the number of words to translate, words to review, words to leverage from previous translations, pages to layout or desktop publish, topics to compile and QA (Quality Assurance), art files to localize or recapture, tables and dialog boxes to resize and QA, software files to compile and QA, etc.

Since project timelines and costs are derived from this spec, it is essential that these specs result from the use of the most optimized process, translating into the most optimized costs and schedules. Working on the native files, for instance, not only does away with the need to extract text from the source files, but more importantly, it eliminates the need to re-insert them for each and ev­ery target language.

Reducing long term localization costs should be the main goal. Investing in the correct process may increase upfront costs, but will tremendously reduce long term costs. Use of translation memory tools (databases and search engines), glossary and style guide generation, use of professional translators and investment in quality as­surance processes, will increase your upfront costs. They are essential, however, to reduce long term costs. Choos­ing the correct localization process is the most important task that can be done to reduce cumulative costs.

There are many processes to consider and follow. A top-down localization process reuses text from transla­tion memory and applies it to the new source files, while a bottom-up localization process compares or contrasts old and new source files, applying changes to the old tar­get files. Depending on the level of change, it may make sense to follow one or the other. A hybrid methodology that combines both top-down and bottomup processes is the ideal methodology to implement.

2.      Verbosity is the enemy

Once the correct process is identified, look at optimiz­ing the different components that comprise localization costs. It is no secret that translation contributes to over 50% of a localization project’s costs, so any optimization you do to reduce the word count will lead to lower trans­lation and localization costs.

Verbosity is therefore the enemy. Try to be concise and straight to the point. Eliminate unneeded and obsolete text. Cut fat wherever possible. Not only will you save on localization costs, but your end-users will thank you for it.

Apply the Pareto Principle- The 80-20 Rule. Only 20% of your product is used 80% of the time by your users. Try to identify the parts that are never or rarely used and minimize them. You may decide to only localize 20-30% of your product’s documentation or help. Or you may decide to release a “light” localized version of your product.

3.      Author for localization

In an effort to simultaneously release a product into many languages, source files are often rushed to localiza­tion teams, shortening the edit cycle. While it saves time to start translation early, always make sure that the final source files are thoroughly edited, before they are submit­ted for localization.

Early optimization for localization and proper editing per­formed on the source files will reduce rework and result in savings multiplied by the number of languages that you localize into. For more information, refer to the InfoMail Authoring For Localization.

4.      Single-Sourcing is finally practical

“Chunking” is a thing of the past. With the advent of new authoring tools, single-sourcing is finally becoming a real­ity. Anyone that reuses information throughout documents or needs to present it in different formats should consider single-sourcing. By consolidating recurring information and building final files from a common source, regardless of for­mats, translation-leveraging from translation memories is minimized and costs reduced.

Perhaps you have a product that works on various plat­forms or for various OEMs (Original Equipment Manufactur­ers), and multiple user manuals are needed. In these cases, the majority of the content is the same. Rather than writing and maintaining three separate manuals, a low-level single-source solution would allow you to write the content once and “code” it for each adaptation. The same is true if you want to release the same information into many formats such as printed manuals, online help or context-sensitive help.

Many of the current authoring tools offer single sourcing options. Most of these options provide the basic function­ality needed to convert docs to help, or vice versa. Check out RoboHelp®, the most used online help authoring tool. Adobe’s FrameMaker®, used in conjunction with WebWorks Publisher®, also provides a low to medium level method of creating online help, manuals or PDFs. At the high-end, ArborText’s Epic® uses database technology to provide a single-sourcing solution. The highly structured content is stored in the database not as a manual or online help file, but as raw data, typically in XML. You create the content freely without worrying about the final output. Then you pick and choose what data and format you need and output it in a semi-automatic way.

5.      Consistency, Consistency, Consistency

While single-sourcing deals with consistency at the top­ic level, efforts should be made to ensure consistency at the string (sentence) level. Improving consistency in your source language documents or applications minimizes the turnaround time and reduces translation costs, especially when translation memory tools are used. Translators only have to translate any unique string once. If you are consis­tent in the use of common strings, the total strings count to translate is reduced by the number of consistently reused strings (also called repeats).

Consistency is probably the most important concept in instructional writing --such as help text, procedures and demos. To help maintain consistency, create a glossary for your terminology and a style guide to follow, and do follow them.

Here are some ways to strive for consistency:

a. When referring to the same concept or object, use the exact same words.

b. Avoid the use of homonyms, as they can cause confu sion.

c. In headings and bullet points try to keep syntax con­sistent.

d. Use terminology consistent with industry standards.

e. Proofread for overall consistency, not just for gram­mar and typos.