Internationalizationing

We have users and potential users all over the globe. How can we make our apps accessible and comfortable for those in any local? This short talk goes over the basics of what internationalization is and what you need to consider when working towards it.

Transcript

1. INTERNATIONALIZATION-ING INTERNATIONALIZATION (i18n) Victoria Gonda
2. WHAT IS INTERNATIONALIZATION? • Localization – Providing native language translations. • Having both RTL and LTR layouts and icons. • Using mindful abbreviations and date/time formats. • Watching iconography semantics.
3. WHY INTERNATIONALIZATION • Makes the product accessible to more people. • Also makes it more comfortable for other people.
4. LOCALIZATION • Often the most obvious part of i18n. • Requires each of your user facing strings are referenced from a string resources file. • Then there are alternates for each of these strings for each language you support.
5. TECHNICAL values/strings.xml values-es/strings.xml
7. ABBREVIATIONS AND FORMATS • Not everyone uses and knows the same abbreviations. • People prefer different date and time formats. • If you can display something in a user’s currency the message is understood better.
8. RIGHT-TO-LEFT • Support right aligned text • Also reverse parts of layouts and breadcrumbs • Reverse directional icons and icons showing text direction
10. ICONOGRAPHY SEMANTICS • Symbols might not mean the same thing in all cultures • Watch for icons with currency and letters
11. TESTING • Change language in browser • Try RTL • Ask someone from another part of the world for their thoughts!
12. WHAT NOW? • Short i18n checklist: https://www.w3.org/International/techniques/ shortchecklist.html • RTL for web: https://www.upwork.com/hiring/for-clients/web-design- for-rtl-languages-basics/ • i18n checker: http://validator.w3.org/i18n-checker/
13. THANKS! VICTORIA GONDA