A good localization will deliver your target market at least the same user experience your source market users enjoy. Otherwise, you will be confirming that you have first-class and second-class users. And nobody likes to be considered second-class, especially if they are spending money on your business.
Spanish users
- Shouldn’t have to search for “España” or “español” in the letter “S”.
- Shouldn’t have to see dates in Spanish wrongly ordered or with missing prepositions.
- Shouldn’t have to see the prices for the USA instead of the prices for Spain.
- Shouldn’t have to see a monolingual Spanish glossary of terms randomly ordered because it has been alphabetically ordered by the English original terms.
- Shouldn’t have to change the display language of a website that opens after clicking a link on an already localized website.
- Shouldn’t have to hear screen readers read the alt text for images in English because those texts weren’t sent for translation since they wouldn’t show up in the screen.
- Shouldn’t be asked to enter their social security number, because in Spain our official form of identification is the “DNI” (national ID card) or “NIF” (tax ID number).
Why localization matters
Localization is much more than just translating the text. It’s handling complex tags and placeholders. It’s localizing prices. It’s reordering lists alphabetically after the translation has been completed. It’s localizing URLs so that they automatically display the user’s language. It’s understanding the source code of the app, software or website. It’s letting the client know that they forgot to send something to translate that should indeed be localized. It’s adapting the text to the target market reality, which may be quite different from the source market.
A well localized app, software or website offers a convenient, natural and familiar user experience. Because they want to feel they belong there, not that they are foreigners.