reporting back on breakout session "software localisation"
Malte Ressin
Name of Chair: Malte Ressin
Name of Scribe: Malte Ressin
What are the five most important things learnt during this discussion:
1. Immense number of examples which potentially require adaption to different target markets.
2. Impossibility to create one exhaustive list of culturally relevant aspects of software.
3. It is not clear what aspects of software are affected by culture.
4. Is "localisation" as a term applicable to "domain culture", compared with "national culture"?
5. Assumptions about cultures are difficult to avoid as making assumptions is an integral part of developing software.
What are the problems, and are there solutions?
- "Culture" as a term is a very difficult to grasp. Two tracks:
- cultural consideration in software
- culture as a theoretical construct
- Examples of software aspects which might have to be localised:
- "Kudos"/"Star" system for post/participation reward
- Workflow organisation (e.g. associated to person vs. associated to role)
- privacy (facebook)
- ethics (second life)
- payment
- maps
- addresses, localisation on a map (as in "where am I and where do I want to go?")
- symbols (X/O on a playstation reversed in Japan)
- No clear, simple, obvious path forward for "software with strings in them".
- Localisation is more than just "putting it in the right language".
- Missing definition of "culture"
- Missing delineation what is culturally relevant and what isn't.
- Translators can't inform about the localisation of aspects of programs that can't be seen.
- Achieving the correct granularity of language translation, e.g. too accurate translations using uncommon English words vs. too broad/inprecise translations.
What further work could be done, and who should do it?
- Compile, as far as possible, a list of cultural differences and aspects relevant to software.
Are there any useful resources that people should know about?
[not discussed]
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Malte Ressin
PhD Student, Centre for Internationalisation and Usability, Room TC372
University of West London, St Mary's Road, Ealing - London W5 5RF
profile: http://www.research.uwl.ac.uk/staffprofiles/view_profile.aspx?email=Malte....@uwl.ac.uk