We’ll explain it with a simple example. Imagine that you created an app to calculate distances and you want to sell it in the United States. You send the content to be translated and when John Smith in Chicago downloads the app, he finds that the measurements are displayed in kilometers. John Smith has never measured distance in kilometers in his life, so he gets annoyed and ends up leaving you a negative review in the app store.
If you had localized the app instead of just translating it, you could have saved poor John Smith some trouble – and your business a negative review.
Some typical examples of texts that may need a localization process are computer programs, marketing documents, online shopping sites, documentation for TV or multimedia channels, social media posts, collaborative tools, etc.
A reliable localization process will include not just translators, but also engineers who compile and decompile files, testers who check that everything works from a linguistic, aesthetic, and functional perspective, and project managers who specialize in managing projects across various languages.
These days, anyone who wants to develop an online product has to think about and prepare for its future localization, even before creating it in their own language.
At Exero, we’re experts in localization, and we work with national and international clients, updating their websites every day as part of projects in different languages. And we have over 25 years of experience and millions of translated words to prove it.