4. Ensuring Quality
General Considerations
The quality of your localized version will have a large impact on its acceptance
in the marketplace. You can greatly enhance your chances of producing
a quality product by using experienced and skilled localizers, and by performing
post-translation testing.
When performing the actual translation, you should be sensitive to a
number of issues:
-
Completeness: you should aim for as thorough a translation as possible.
Try not to leave portions of the product untranslated. However, be aware
that some terms may best be left in English, depending on local conventions.
-
Suitability: all translations should be suitable and appropriate for product,
the language, the market and the customers you intend to reach. This
includes using the proper technical terminology for a give platform or
computer operation, as well as using language that is readily understood
by the average user of the product in a given language. You should,
where possible, try to use terminology which is similar to other products
available on the same platform (without violating copyrights or trademarks,
of course).
-
Accuracy: you should be sure your translation conveys the same meaning
and intention as the original English.
-
Grammar and spelling: you should be sure your translation is grammatically
accurate and free from spelling errors.
Keep in mind that engineers do not necessarily make the best localizers!
Once localization is complete, there are two basic types of post-translation
testing that should be done:
Linguistic Review |
Checking all translations for accuracy and appropriateness in the actual
context in which they appear. |
Functional Testing |
Ensuring the product still functions as designed (or at least as well
as the US English product). |
For the linguistic review, you should have an independent reviewer (i.e.
not the person who implemented the translations) check every string for
the items listed above. In some cases, it may be enough to review
the running product itself; however, it is also valuable to print out your
translations (using ToolCool or your own translation tools) and review
them externally from the product.
For the functional testing, your best resource are the directions contained
in the localization notes and this document. You should review the completed
product's localization notes with this document in hand, double checking
that you have followed all the instructions contained here and in the appropriate
.DOG file's COMMENT field.
Consider the following general guidelines when testing:
-
It is helpful to have a second copy of the product running with the English
version so you can compare them side by side (a second computer might be
helpful or required for this).
-
Walk through every menu in each module you have localized looking for translation
accuracy, pick letter conflicts and other problems.
-
Bring up as many dialogs as you can, looking for translation accuracy,
pick letter conflicts, truncated strings and functionality issues.
-
Use as many of the features of the product as possible: read web pages,
read and send mail and discussion group messages, set mail filters, search
mail and discussion groups, create web pages using the Composer, etc. If
functional problems are found, you should compare the same steps you took
in the localized product to the English product: if the two products fail
in the same way, it is a "core" bug, which can only be fixed by changing
the core product's executable. If the localized product fails while the
English product does not, then it is probably a translation-related bug;
these can be fixed by altering the way you localize the product (perhaps
by not translating a particular item, or by translating it differently).
Testing the Localised Content with US Communicator
To test the that the localised NetHelp files (both content and help implementation)
work under the US Version Communicator, follow these steps:
1. Make sure that the installed version of Communicator can launch NetHelp
by selecting the Help | Help Contents menu item. If this doesn't work,
the chances of localised content working are slim. Re-installing Communicator
should solve the problem.
2. Make a backup copy of the installed "NetHelp" folder. Name
it "NetHelp US RTM" or such.
3. Once NetHelp is in working order, copy over all the files from Files
to localise/help/Communicator 4.x/ and Files to localise/nshi/
to their respective locations under ...\Communicator\Program\NetHelp\
, but only replacing files that already are there. (Win16 doesn't use the
JavaScript NetHelp implementation; Win32 doesn't have shared/Contents.htm,
Navigator doesn't have content for Messenger, Composer, ...)
4. Launch Communicator and select the Help | Help Contents menu item.
You should see the localised Table of Contents entries appear.
Testing the TOC
To separately test the Table of Contents replace the CntData.js file under
...\Communicator\Program\NetHelp\ with the newly generated one.
After that launch Communicator and select the Help | Help Contents menu
item. You should see the localised Table of Contents entries appear. Select
all of the content areas one by one, opening up the topic lists, and going
through all links shown.
Testing the Index
To separately test a newly generated IdxData.js file, copy the file to
the NetHelp directory under ...\Communicator\Program\
and launch NetHelp. Bring up the Index window by clicking on "Index".
Click the entries appearing in the index and verify that all of them
work. If you have also replaced all the English HTML content files, you
should also see localised content coming up.
If you are creating a multi-byte localization (e.g. Japanese, Korean,
Chinese, etc.) and experience problems with your index file, consult the
troubleshooting section for a possible
solution.
The following section tells you how to report bugs in the localization
kit itself, or in the core product. Click the NEXT link to continue.
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Communications Corp. All Rights Reserved