Localization testing: why does your app, game, or website need it?
We explain what and how to check before releasing different language versions of your product.
Picture this: you develop an app, then launch it worldwide. But right after the release, you discover bugs in different language versions of the final product. Yeah, we know, it sounds pretty much like a developer’s worst nightmare. And that’s why localization testing exists: to prevent these very situations.
The USA no longer dominates the mobile market. China and India are quickly taking the lead in the race for the title of “world’s largest mobile market for tech companies.” And today you need to check twice before releasing different language versions of your app or website, as the cost of even a small mistake can be very high.
Localization testing is usually not the first thing that development companies consider. And yet this process should be included at every stage of software development, internationalization, and localization. Let’s take a closer look at localization testing, what the most essential steps are, and why you need it. In this article, we share our approach to localization testing for games, tips and tricks to keep in mind.
What is localization testing?
This is the first and most important question that may occur to you. Simply put, localization testing verifies that the app or website content meets the linguistic, cultural, and regional requirements and specifics of a particular country or region.
Localization testing is one of the types of QA that takes place during product development. This type of testing helps to find bugs or translation errors in the localized version before the final product reaches your users. It’s a real headache for any developer to discover errors when the app has just gone live. The goal of testing is to eliminate content mistakes in various localized product versions for different markets and locales.
It’s important to note that localization is more than just basic translation into several languages. While linguistic testing mainly consists of checking for errors in translation, spelling, and grammar, localization testing has a much broader definition. Localization testing encompasses time and currency formats, graphics, icons, color schemes, and dozens of other minute details.
Before we jump into an in-depth discussion of localization testing, let’s talk about why your app or website actually needs it.
Why is localization testing so important?
The main idea of localization testing is to make the product look and feel natural for the foreign target audience. You need to make it look as though it were created specifically for their cultural and regional background.
Localization makes customers more loyal to your brand. Here are some numbers to prove our point: about 72.1% of internet users prefer to shop on websites in their native language. Even those who are proficient in English still prefer to browse the Internet in their native tongue.
Localization testing ensures that internationally visible apps and websites are of high quality. Let’s imagine that you’ve created an app that has English, Russian, and German versions. You’ve hired the best translators, so you’re 100% confident that the grammar and spelling are correct. But suddenly you find that the German texts exceed the size of certain buttons in the app, or the time and date formats on the website do not correspond to the region. Localization testing exists to prevent these situations where the overall content is not “native,” even though the texts are grammatically correct.
Also, keep in mind that context is the king. If you want to make your app or website look native, watch out for regional specifics and small local features. A contextual review means better product quality and, as a result, more positive user experience in the long term.
What should be checked during localization testing?
As we’ve already mentioned, localization testing is not only about spell checking and correct translation. To help you not to overlook anything during this process, we’ve created a checklist of things to pay attention to. Here are the main things to take into account.
- Preparatory phase
To make localization testing smooth, we advise you to take some essential steps before you start the QA process.
- Prepare the documents and information needed for testers to optimally perform localization testing.
- Provide background information on the product, app, or website.
- Create glossaries to help testers understand the proper context. Glossaries and vocabularies help with checking references and consistency.
- Attach documents with any previously translated versions of the app or website for reference if you have them. Or you can use a tool that stores all your previously translated versions in one place.
- Set up a bug tracker — a document or platform where you record all bugs found during localization testing. This will help to fix all the bugs later on and not to lose track of them. It also makes it easier to share the bugs with the rest of your team.
2. Regional and cultural check
This is an essential step in the localization testing process. For this step, you need to have either screenshots or a localized app build. During this stage we recommend that you check the following things:
- Proper date and time formats corresponding to your regions and locales.
- Phone number and address formats.
- Color schemes. This is important, as the same color can have different meanings in various cultures. For example, white is considered lucky in Western countries but signifies death and mourning in Asian culture.
- Product names, to ensure that they correspond to regional legal standards.
- Currency formats.
- Units of measurement.
3. Linguistic check
At this step, we mainly consider language peculiarities. This is time to verify the following:
- Terminology is the same on every website page or app screen
- No grammatical errors
- No spelling mistakes
- Punctuation is correct
- Text direction (right to left or left to right)
- Proper use of names, places, and titles
4. UI or appearance
This part is important to make your website or app look great in any language. Don’t forget to ensure that :
- All the images containing text are localized.
- The layout of various versions matches that of the original.
- Hyphenation and line breaks on the pages or screens are in the proper places.
- Dialogs, pop-ups, and notifications appear correctly.
- The text fits into all the fields without overflowing. Sometimes texts are too long and do not fit onto the buttons. Here the client’s developer helps to fix these bugs if they appear.
Example
The Alconost team encountered one such case with Dotemu and their game Blazing Chrome. In the Spanish version, some texts were too long for the buttons. The word “Next” was too long in Spanish: “Siguiente.” The Alconost team discovered this bug during localization testing and suggested replacing “Siguiente” with “Seguir” to keep the interface looking great. This is how the localization testing process helps to make the UX and UI look better for clients and to eliminate bugs like this in an app interface.
5. Functionality
This is one of the last stages, but it is also one of the most important. Here you need to check whether your localized app works correctly. During this step we recommend that you look at:
- Basic functionality of the localized app or website.
- Hyperlinks. Check whether they work in all language versions and that all hyperlinks are legal and working in every region.
- Proper operation of input features.
- Support for special characters for various locales and languages.
- Proper operation of hotkeys.
- Correct sorting of lists.
- Font support.
- Format separators.
What challenges can arise during localization testing?
Localization testing has its own challenges and pitfalls, and it’s good to be aware of them. As we all know, forewarned is forearmed.
One of the main pitfalls is insufficient knowledge of the language of the target locale. Naturally, there’s no way you can know all the languages in the world. But fortunately, you have a means of overcoming this challenge: work with professional localization and translation companies. For example, Alconost offers its clients a full spectrum of localization QA services. The main advantage of working with agencies such as Alconost is that their localized texts are always evaluated by translators who are native speakers of the target language and have extensive testing experience. So you can be 99.99% sure that all the regional specifics are taken into consideration.
Another thing that can ruin your localization testing is poor knowledge of the product field, especially if it is a narrow one. QA specialists should clearly understand the purpose of the app or website. This is another good reason to work with localization agencies: they have extensive experience in various fields and know that the team needs to study the client’s product in advance and ask all the necessary questions to fully understand the product.
Localization testing can be quite time-consuming, as it takes time to learn about different regions. To streamline the process and meet the product release deadline, you need to integrate the localization QA step into the entire development lifecycle. Make localization testing a continuous process: when new texts appear, translate them, then conduct testing as soon as possible. Planning for localization testing in advance will help avoid a slow time to market.
Last but not least, companies often forget to create an organized platform or document to store all the bugs found during localization testing. Without this, you could end up losing the bugs and not fixing them at all. So create a clear mechanism for storing, sharing, and eliminating bugs.
Localization testing gives your clients a better experience with your product and makes them more loyal to your brand. You wouldn’t pass up on a chance to create a better app experience for your audience, now would you?
You might also find useful:
Localization testing checklist
In-app UX and localization: top pitfalls
Translation and localization platforms — tips for agile teams
Continuous localization: making it happen
About the author
Alconost is a global provider of translation services into 70+ languages: app localization, localization of games, and other software.
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