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1、外文原文外文原文The 9th European Conference on Information SystemsBled, Slovenia, June 27-29, 2001SOFTWARE LOCALIZATION: ISSUES AND METHODSRosann Webb Collins2. KEY ISSUES IN SOFTWARE PRODUCT AND INTERFACE LOCALIZATION2.1 Costs of Localization and Impact on PricingThe initial and ongoing costs of localizati

2、on are significant. eTranslate, a web-based service bureau, charges US$50 per page for European languages and US$60 per page for Asian languages for translation of content only. Microsoft currently spends more than $300 million per year on localization of their products into 46 languages. Berlitz Tr

3、anslation Services estimates a cost of between $50,000 and $100,000 or more to fully localize a software product for one additional language, while Microsoft estimates its costs at least $300,000 or more per product (Preston and Flohr, 1997). Forrester Research estimates that localization of a new w

4、eb site adds between 10-60% of the original development costs of the site. In the case of the Internet, sites change, on average, twice a year (Yunker 2000), so there will also be significant, ongoing maintenance costs for localized web sites.It is critical that the costs of localization be accounte

5、d for on a detailed level, since this cost accounting is needed for planning future efforts, and is of particular importance if the company sells localized products or localization services. If that is the companys business, then the cost information is necessary for accurate pricing of services for

6、 development and maintenance of the information products. In addition, the maintenance costs of the products and interfaces should be similarly collected at a detailed level in order to understand the special maintenance costs of a single application that has multiple, localized interfaces. High dev

7、elopment and maintenance costs, and their importance to informing the pricing of information products, argue for a systematic approach to localization that includes cost measurement.At GTC, initial development of the portal was done without adequate cost accounting, and while localization needs were

8、 considered from the beginning, a technical review found the initial portal to be non-scalable and not easily adaptable. When the decision was made to redesign the portal for the new technology environment (which was concurrent with a change in technology leadership in the company), no data existed

9、on the initial portal development to estimate time and cost for the redesign. This lack of information has reinforced the need to collect such information, and the new technology management has instituted development procedures to collect metrics on all development activities. In some ways this init

10、ial mistake was serendipitous, since the impact was relatively low (little basis for planning the portal redesign effort), and now managers and developers are committed to measuring the costs of the main software product (now in development for several medical practices). This software product will

11、have to be localized extensively to the needs of the individual practices as well as locales, and it is critical to the company to have solid information on costs in order to price the product appropriately.2.2 Localization IndustryIt is possible to outsource some or all of the localization developm

12、ent and maintenance. The decision about whether or not to outsource, or what parts to outsource are based on the traditional tradeoff issues relevant to any make-or-buy decision. The advantages of in-house localization are that the organization builds expertise, can exercise tight control on process

13、 and quality, and the localization results may not be easily reproduced by competitors. However, as discussed earlier, in-house localization has significant costs, and the expertise required may not be available in all cases. (There may be more help available in the future. There is a graduate degre

14、e in software localization offered at the University of Limerick in Ireland. Pym (1999) argues that localization should be required in the curriculum of all degrees that prepare translators.) The advantages of outsourcing localization are speed of delivery and cost, but outsourcing localization mean

15、s that no in-house expertise will be built, the organization will be dependent to at least some extent on the company providing the development, and there is little competitive advantage to be maintained.Sources of information about localization and outsourcing vendors include:www.lisa.org Localisat

16、ion Industry Standards Association Multilingual Computingwww.localization-institute.org Localization InstituteIn 1999 localization accounted for 32% of the $11 billion world market for translation services (Washington Times, 2000). While translation software and careful preparation of source text mi

17、nimizes translation costs, there is still a need for human intervention to handle words, especially technical terms, for which there is no word in some languages, as well as to deal with differences in meaning from direct translations and cultural differences.The services offered by the localization

18、 industry are quite varied. Some offer traditional translation services, human, human-enhanced, and automatic; some have translation management systems to stores and maintain translations; some are aimed at specific industries (Simms, 2000). Automatic translation is especially effective when the sou

19、rce text has been written in an international style, sometimes called “controlled language”. For example, Harkus (2000) lists specific writing practices: simple and clear copy (e.g., limit the number of nouns that qualify a noun) that avoids humor and analogies that dont translate to other cultures,

20、 and formatting rules (e.g., do not uses dashes or slashes as punctuation marks) that facilitate translation.GTC reviewed the range of services from the localization industry, and decided to purchase an automatic translation-enabled email and discussion room functions for the portal. The localizatio

21、n of the portal and the main software product is being done in-house, to leverage the market research that has been done to select countries in which to operate and to build in-house expertise in this area. GTC maintains offices in each country of operation, and these local office individuals suppor

22、t system development and testing. Partners with real estate on the portal are responsible for their own localization, but GTC acts as an advisor to the partners when they have no experience with localization.2.3 Localization of Specific Aspects of ApplicationsSoftware localization is based on market

23、 research on each country as well as on input from usability testing in the target country. Testing global software in-country leverages developers knowledge of the locale, and such well-defined tasks with little interdependence are easily distributed (Carmel, 1999). Many of the aspects of the count

24、ry knowledge are obvious and immutable characteristics, such as language; other aspects are subtler and subject to cultural shifts, such as the meaning of colors. The technology infrastructure of a country presents a particular design challenge, since that infrastructure will change and may be contr

25、olled by individual governments or companies. Therefore the local technology-driven parts of a design will have be revisited on a regular basis. This means that the reuse possibilities and maintenance demands of the localized software solutions will differ by type and country. Finally, structural di

26、fferences within organizations create a need for either localization or a change to common business processes and data. Collins and Kirsch (1999) found that structural boundaries arise from differences in business processes, data quality, and business priorities. Even when a decision is made to make

27、 a change to a truly global solution, it is common to have a technological core system with localized interfaces.In this section of the paper, the country-specific aspects that might need localization are discussed in greater detail. This section is an expanded version of the guide prepared for deve

28、lopers at GTC.2.3.1 Language and ContentTranslation of content from one language to another can be partially supported by translation software, but in most cases human intervention is needed because direct translation may change the meaning of the content. A classic example of this problem is from t

29、he popular Milk Processor Board commercial that uses the tag line Got Milk? If translated directly into Spanish, the tag line would come out as Are You Lactating? In order to market to Latino mothers the ads tag line was changed to And You, Have You Given Them Enough Milk Today?, and the images show

30、n are of mothers cooking flan and other milk-rich Latin foods in a family kitchen (Wartzman, 1999).The translation ratio of words and sentences is not 1:1. Since the space required for a body of text can be dramatically different between languages (e.g., when English text is translated to French, th

31、e increase is between 15 and 20%, when it is translated into Hindi, the increase may be 80%), interface design must account for these differing space requirements. Individual words used in menus and on tabs can be especially problematic for design: for example, the Preferences selection common on Wi

32、ndows interfaces translates to Bildschirmeinstellungen in German. Therefore menus, boxes, logos or other graphics with words imbedded must be self-sizing, or there will be additional costs in redesigning those elements for each localized interface.Some terms, especially technology terms, may not exi

33、st in some languages. Often the original word is used, but sometimes a new word is coined based on a phonetical translation. The commercial translation services create and maintain dictionaries of these specialized terms to reduce redundant translation effort and to increase the coverage of automatic transl