Usability in Multilingual contents & labels

For any application - multilingual content & labels should be screened thoroughly. This make the internationalisation part a successful.

General check in handling content is QA check in spelling, grammatical error, breaking longer sentence to shorter.

Once translator gets a request to translate, most of the time translators do subjective translation than word by word. Subjective translation is an appropriate way of translating the content or label than word to word translation.

Real challenge starts while translating the engineering or medical terminologies i.e. scientific terminologies. For example to translate words like "Tighten ARM knob/Toeout on Turns and Lockangle" Translator needs better understanding of the system.

translator or copyrighter action points:

1. Understanding the system
2. Understanding the end users.
3. Content should be subjective
4. Simple, easy to read & remember.
5. All navigation items - labels should be short.
6. Should be ready with different label (with same meaning) to implement it as per the users preference after the usability testing.

Evaluating labels & content:
Copywriter & translators feel that they are always 100% perfect with their labels. But the end users are the best one to judge the accuracy of labeling and content. Best way to evaluate menu labels is by usability testing.

Usability testing on multilingual sites:
Usability engineer will test the application with the users to check how comfortable users are with the labels used.
1. Choosing users.
2. Conducting test.
3. Analysing the result

Analysis result:
At this stage users understanding on labels and contents can be measured quantitative and qualitative. Statistical data & feedback from users will help content writers and translators to understand the end user expectation.