Presentation Title Helvetica 24pt

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Content Localization Gilbane Conference
Boston Nov 28, 2006
Taxonomies
Whats this?
C. Donner
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Traditional Localization
en_US
Country code
Language code
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The codes

• Language code ISO 639-1,
• Country code ISO 3166.
• E.g. 'ca_EN' and 'ca_FR'.

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en_US

• Language English
• Country United States

Locale.setDefault( new Locale("en", "US") )
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How Language experts see it
(Globalization sells better than
Localization)Then, reduce Localization to the
act of translatingGlobalization
Internationalization n x Translation(the GIRT
equation)
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Slide by Pierre Cadieux (i18n.ca) - Reused with
permission
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Something is missing .
Localization is not only about what language
users see, but also about what content users see
in different locales.
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Localization

• Give the user the content that he wants,in the
  format that he understands.

Once he had the Babel Fish in his ear, Arthur
understood perfectly.
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en_US?
?
?
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A Localization Taxonomy
In the reference taxonomy for managed content in
multinational organizations, every piece of
content can be fully described by three
dimensions related to geography

• Where is it from?
• What region is it for?
• What region is it about?
• In addition, there is a 4th localization
  dimension that defines the language.
• Note that the dimensions define regions, not
  countries.

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Where is it from?

• This can be the name or location of a regional
  office, for instance.
• This information is not very important for the
  site user in most situations
• It can be important internally to control
  workflow and track content production
• Press releases and articles from News feeds are
  well-known examples of how the source of content
  is made available to the user/consumer
• Still, I dont know a single example of a website
  taxonomy that uses this dimension for search and
  navigation

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What region is it for?

• This dimension describes the target audience(s)
  for the content
• It can be populated automatically based on
  business rules
• E.g. the London office writes for the European
  markets
• Or manually, based on the judgment of an expert
• E.g. this article is universal, therefore I will
  post it to the global region
• A site typically uses this dimension to
  automatically retrieve content based on a users
  profile or selection of a region

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What region is it about?

• Content metadata in its original sense, this
  dimension discusses what is in the content
• The most important of the three dimensions, this
  one is what the users need to conduct searches
  and retrieve meaningful results
• It is also the most difficult one to populate,
  because the person tagging the content must be a
  subject matter expert

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Country is limiting us

• Traditional localization techniques deal with
  countries and languages
• Country may be too granular or too coarse for
  your business objective
• Markets do not always align with countries
• Examples EMEA, Asia, Central America

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Region is better

• For fine-grained control, let countries roll up
  into regions, forming a geography dimension
• Regions should align with markets, countries can
  be added to allow for local specifics

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Going global

• The global level node of the geography dimension
  may not be at the top
• Rolling up regions to a global category will
  create an unusable collection of content
• Global can, however, be a separate and
  independent region, e.g. when there is a
  corresponding global market
• Global content can be used for a global landing
  page that is transitional for most users

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The cube
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Real-world examples
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One-dimensional Localization

• Language only
• Everybody gets to see the same content
• User can select the language in which the content
  is presented
• Suitable for global organizations with global
  content
• No regional targeting of content possible
• Content must be translated into all languages
• Using a uniform page layout is unlikely

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Today we plan to show you process, practice, and
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Three-dimensional Localization

• Content is not shared between Locales
• Translations typically not required
• User selects a Locale and gets content specific
  for this Locale
• Used on News and Web portals with regional
  versions
• Also used by global organizations with strong
  regional presences and autonomous regional
  content production

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A closer look
Today we plan to show you process, practice, and
Compare Sports, World, Karikaturen, etc.
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3½-dimensional Localization

• Categories differ across Locales
• Some similarities across categories can be
  deceiving, butEven differences in the order are
  important
• Where is Sports on the German site?
• In German media, Sports is not considered News
• Where is World on the German site?
• German media often does not distinguish between
  National and International politics

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Complex n-dimensional Taxonomy

• Target region
• Global
• Language
• English
• Content category up to 5 levels (3 in the
  example)
• Indices Equity Italian Indices
• Content type
• News Analysis Index News
• Content region
• Europe

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microsoft.com

• Several years ago, Microsoft had a diverse set of
  loosely integrated local sites
• There were common design cues, but specifically
  the content was not shared in any way
• Imagine the cost of maintaining a local site in
  every country Microsoft does business in
• Today, there is a single design, taxonomy, shared
  content, translation process, all the works.

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From the WayBackMachine . March 2000
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The Future Convergence
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Take-away
Content Localization
Taxonomy Localization
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Thank you!
QA