If you want to launch your SaaS product in the global marketplace, you must create a multilingual brand presence to cater to diverse audiences. However, it will be a complex job to localize your software for different languages, and cultures. When it comes to localization, you must build your software in a way that supports the localization process later. Keeping your software design flexible helps you keep things less complicated and agile; it also allows you to have a seamless software localization journey from the beginning till the end.
In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of a flexible software design on localization and the best approaches to go about your software localization.
What Happens When You Keep Your SaaS Design Flexible?
When you keep your software localization ready and have a flexible enough design to easily get adjusted to the different markets, it brings about a lot of perks for your localization project. Here is how a flexible SaaS design changes the whole localization game for you.
Enhance Consistency
Planning ahead about localization from the start allows you to strategically carry out your operations smoothly and with much consistency. You can also create your brand glossaries using a translation management system that will help your translators keep the brand voice consistent. It will give your translator a better contextual understanding of written source content.
Promote Agility
A flexible software design saves the time and effort of your localization teams and allows them to manage more work in less time. Because you have already built your software on internationalization principles, localization will be easier and less complicated.
Higher Effectiveness
When you have your localization strategy ready, and your operations are aligned with localization goals, it allows you to have a more holistic approach to software development and localization. It reduces the chances of errors and uncertainties and allows you to carry out your software journey more effectively.
Creativity And Quality
The idea behind flexibility is to keep your source content and design simplified and easy to be modified. It will leave a lot of room for creativity and you can smoothly mold your software to meet the local requirements of foreign markets. This way you can significantly enhance the overall quality of your localized elements while staying relevant with the original brand persona.
Best Approaches to Make Your Localization Agile and Effective
Internationalize Your Software
If you have a global vision for your software, you must internationalize it in the development phase. Here you have to follow the software internationalization principle, where you must not hardcode any elements of your code. Keep the text and user-facing elements in separate files. Similarly, use Unicode rules to develop your software. Internationalization is the one thing that makes localization simplified, agile, and seamless for your developers and translators.
Use A Reliable TMS
If you want to seamlessly get away with your localization challenges, you must have a reliable cloud-based localization management platform by your side. Using professional tools, you can optimize your translation operations and allow your localization teams to work in a collaborative environment. These systems help you effectively manage your project resources and provide you with features to automate your everyday localization operations. You can customize your TMS specifications and significantly reduce the time and cost of your localization tasks.
Create An Effective Product Localization Strategy
You must come up with an effective SaaS product localization strategy from the very start. For this, you must first define your localization goals and what objectives you want to achieve by localizing your software. When you understand your product vision, it will be much easier for you to come up with a strategy that will help you fulfill your goals in a more systematic manner. In the strategy-making phase, you must analyze your expenses, plan your budget, establish project KPIs, acquire authentic market data, and make a list of all the required tools that you will require to effectively manage your localization project.
Content Should Be Easily Adaptable
Last but certainly but least, the written content of your software should be approached keeping in mind the translations. Try not to use too many idioms and cultural references in the content. Otherwise, it would be hard to translate them for other regions. You must keep your software’s source content very simple so that it can be easily adapted to other languages seamlessly. However, creating glossaries for the content and preparing your textual documents ready for translation is also important. Make sure to provide your translators with contextual information, reference material, and proper style guides. It will allow them to translate your content with more accuracy and maintain the consistency and relevance of your translated content with the original brand message.
Wrapping up!
Flexible software design can save you from complications and time-consuming localization operations. You must follow the guidelines provided in this article to make your localization process seamless, effective and agile.
