The global market is somewhat competitive nowadays. Clients have a wide variety of products and services to choose from. It made businesses more focused on the end-users needs. As each region differs from the other, each user’s needs are different. And that’s the challenge for companies. To get a place in the global market, your business needs to be contrasting others by respecting the culture, the language, and the tastes of your targeted customers. Here comes the rule of localization and LQA (localization quality assurance) to ensure a good product or service quality and fix the bugs and errors that can appear to users. This is essential to boost the user experience. When dealing with end-users, things must be clear, professional, and attractive to keep the customers’ loyalty. Otherwise, as many competitors exist, they can switch to another service or product provider.
So, while the importance of localization is obvious, many companies forget about testing. Probably, someone thinks it’s extra and unnecessary. And, of course, that’s not true. Localization testing is a must. Localization testing services work hard to ensure that all users will have an enjoyable experience by focusing on the bugs, cultural sensitivity, and linguistics. To explain the importance of localization testing, let’s take the gaming industry as an example.
What is localization Testing?
LQA must rate the localization’s quality by checking the errors and bugs before the end-users find them. It is a great way to avoid conflicts and non-professionalism when you deal with your targeted audience.
Localization testing has several parts, including linguistic and technical testing.
Let’s explain each one individually.
- Linguistic testing: this testing checks if there is any error in the texts of the product. The spelling, style, functionality, and meaning are what is considered. The translation is well verified to know if it is done correctly because sometimes the translations, especially if a machine does, can contain huge mistakes. The grammar use must be correct as well. Native speakers also check the text on cultural sensitivity to avoid any conflict.
- Technical testing: this testing is based on how the text appears to the user to check how it is adaptative and convenient. It focuses on the text’s placement on the textures to see how correctly the sentences are placed, the fonts, and the correct display of text.
Both kinds of testing have a mission to deliver the best quality of the final product. For example, in the gaming industry, the competition is challenging, and avoiding mistakes or detecting them before the release can boost your rating in Google Play and Apple Store. It means you gain more downloads, happy clients, and revenue.
Why the localization testing so important?
The main rule of localization testing is to make the game or the product feel and looks natural to the users, as if the product is created especially for them and tailored for their regional and cultural background. The localization testing will ensure that your audience will use your game or product daily because it will enhance their trust. Many types of research proved that 72% of internet users play games, read, and shop only on the sites in their mother language. Even though many of them are good with English, it is a matter of comfort than knowledge.
As localization, ensure your game or software is a high-quality product. Your confidence in the targeted market will be high, but as it is a global marketplace, you might have many languages. Let’s take as an example 5 languages. You did the translation with the best human translation services, ensuring correct grammar, spelling, and meaning. Still, you found out that the number of words used in the translation changed, which means the same sentence in a language will be longer in the other language, and that will create issues because you will need more space for the sentence, and if it’s a button, it can even hide it. Another example is when the timezone does not match the region you are targeting, the users will react to this negatively as it’ll be confusing. Localization testing exists to prevent such cases because when we speak about a business, any minor mistake can be fatal and even harm the brand image.
It is crucial never to forget the context of your software to make it feel and look native to your users and keep an eye on the regional and cultural particularities. By doing so, your software will be more adaptative and smooth. Do not hesitate to review the context to ensure its quality is excellent.
Wrapping up
In conclusion, using localization testing is a must. It’s how to empower your business and make it different to compete with others. It is the key to success to avoid some errors that can cost a lot. LQA will make the software adaptative to the expectations of your customers by respecting the culture and regional aspects.
Investing in a good localization service company will save you money in the long term and make your product’s brand image stronger.
