The individual...

Design for localization

The phrase “world-ready” has been used by several companies to describe products that are designed and implemented in a manner making it faster and less resource-intensive to create and deploy on a global scale. This is also known as globalization, of which localization is a part.

• Avoid detailed maps and specific place names as different cultures may have different, or even conflicting, views

• Ensure that UI text can be easily extracted, translated and corrected

• Use brief text phrases and labels – translating short phrases from English to other languages can more than double the length of the text

• Locate field labels above or below the field rather than next to it

• Account for different formatting of items such as time, date, phone numbers, measurements, and currency

Note: while other aspects of world-readiness pertaining to the technical implementation and testing of the product should also be adopted, they are beyond the scope of the user experience design principles.

dave@mobileixd.com

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