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1月 14, 2021 |

The Importance of Developers in a Translation/Localization Agency

When many companies set out to localize their website, app, or marketing materials, they’ll often start by asking a translator for a price quote. They may turn to a provider with little-to-no development experience wrongly assuming that the project involves simple translation and text. But underestimating the importance of developers in a translation/localization agency is a big mistake. Developers play a crucial role in the success of your localization project and should be included in the planning from the start. 

When choosing the right partner to work with, it’s important that you select a translation/localization agency that can offer a full service from the localization and transcreation of your message to culturally appropriate design and seamless integration with your existing website.

Why Developers Are So Important

Developers play a fundamental role in the success of your localization project. In fact, without them, you could end up with texts that read incorrectly or take up too much or too little space in your website design. Imagine visiting a website where the writing goes outside of the buttons or images. Your company looks unprofessional and you risk sending customers away.

Most websites today are built on CMSs that store content in databases and have a variety of additional plugins to facilitate content posting. While website maintenance is indeed made easier this way, it can significantly complicate the translation and localization process and means that you need developers to be involved at every step of the project.

Fortunately, when you hire a translation/localization agency with developers as well as translators and designers, you don’t have to worry about the complex inner workings of your website. 

A professional service can take care of development processes from extracting translatable text from your website to reloading the translations and ensuring that the new text fits within your design frame.

Developers will also be on top of many other processes that happen in the backend from reviewing the code and design elements, to making your page more appealing to both local internet users and search engines. 

A Word on Internationalization

If you are planning to localize your website into multiple languages, developers can also ensure that you internationalize your site to prepare it for all the changes that each different language requires. Website internationalization focuses on design and development. It consists of technical changes that make localization possible. Once your site is ready, you can start localizing in any language. 

This is a relatively simple task for developers to take care of to ensure that language changes don’t have any adverse effects on your website architecture or layout. But it could quickly become a nightmare for a linguist with no technical skills – making the importance of developers in a translation/localization agency even more pronounced.

The Translation and Localization Process

Of course, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution and the translation and localization process can vary greatly depending on the size and complexity of the project. It also depends on whether you will need ongoing development support.

If you have in-house developers, they will need to be present and can help to facilitate all these processes and determine the best approach. Try to find out how much time your developers will need to budget for the process as this will help you to put together a more accurate cost of the entire project.

Translating the texts is only the beginning. Once the texts have been translated, it’s the developers who will be the most involved in the project. They will be tasked with the most critical responsibilities to make sure that your website localization project comes together smoothly. 

While we don’t usually think about developers speaking languages, the reality is that they will likely be fluent in several computer languages needed to complete your project. These may include C++, Python, and Java. They will also be skilled in UX design to ensure that your website looks and feels professional and has a logical user flow.

They also need to have a keen eye for detail and be able to make changes to code as and when needed for foreign language websites and help out with any other technical issues that arise. They’ll also need to assist you with any edits and additions that you make to your site later on.

Final Thoughts

The importance of developers in a translation/localization agency cannot be underestimated even if you have your own developers in house. Alongside excellent native-speaking translators, these are the people who will help make the difference between success and failure and be involved every step of the way.

Website localization will help your business to reach new audiences and unlock potential new revenue streams so it’s important that you get it right. Selecting the right partner with the talent to help you throughout the entire project will help ensure the best outcome in new markets.