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Demystifying internationalization to enhance user experience

Taking your product or service global, if done right, could reap significant rewards for your business venture. The high stakes involved in going global means that brands have their work cut out to make sure market entry is successful.

Off all the components involved in market entry, establishing a meaningful and seamless user experience is probably the most crucial factor in ensuring the long-term sustainability of your business.

While several industry experts put the discussion of localization on the front burner when it comes to going global, one critical segment sparsely mentioned is the role of internationalization and how it affects the user experience.

For this reason, we would be taking a more concise look at internationalization and how brands can take advantage of it when going global.

What is internationalization?

As the name implies, Internationalization fundamentally means getting your product or service to the global scene, but at the same time, it means more.

From the language point of view, the process of reaching out to an international audience who are, most times, diverse in culture and language requires efficiency. 

Your products or services need to be easily modifiable, or better still, adaptable to fit different regions without requiring going back to recreate whenever you want to access a new region.

Think about it as the foundation upon which you build your platform and message when venturing into the global market. 

In fact, internationalization is the first phase of the globalization process, with the next phase being the localization of your platform to connect with your target market.

Internationalization could be as simple as incorporating more illustrations to your product to ensure that it is easily understood by anyone, or it could be as complex as ensuring that the design layout of your website can cater to different languages (LTR or RTL).

How do you internationalize?

Carrying out internationalization is a lot easier said than done. And the process, like anyone familiar with any foundational activity, needs to be conceptualized and performed at the early stages.

Take a scenario where you want to adapt your website or software to a global audience. A process like this involves early planning and the active collaboration between several participants; Translators, Copywriters, Web developers, UI designers, etc.

Internationalization, in this case, would involve developing a standard format for your; 

  1. Content: How do your translators and copywriters create your brand’s message so that no critical information is lost in translation? 
  2. Data Encoding: Your web development team would need to adopt a more consistent form of storing numbers, text and other data.
  3. User Interface: Creating a standardized UI interface that is not only responsive to content changes but is easy to understand by your international audience irrespective of their region

The bigger picture (How does internationalization affect the user experience)

In the end, it all boils down to how your product or service is received by your international audience, with the user experience plays a critical role here.

Although internationalization does not directly affect the experience of your product, it sets the stage for localization and makes it easier for your product or services to deliver a delightful user experience.

The end product of internationalization would be a globalized product or service that has established a meaningful connection with its satisfied consumer.

Conclusion

Expanding your product or service into the international scene requires consumer focus for you to stand out and succeed. But the process of focusing on the end-user needs to be efficient. By effectively combining internationalisation with localisation you are one step closer to a globalised product that the international audience enjoys.

Are you ready to go global? At TranslationsinLondon, we have an array of consumer-focused services that takes you anywhere you want to go in the world.

Give us a call or send us a mail today to get started

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