Cultured Localisation (Arrrrcamp)

This talk isn’t really about localisation or internationalisation (add a ‘z’ if you prefer!) – it’s about culture and understanding. It’s about how we should all be approaching localisation challenges as people problems and to give good examples of how to get it right and where you can go so very wrong.

Your framework and tool of choice is the easy part – understanding the people you’re wanting to each out to is oh-so-very hard and too often seen as only just a translation problem – a simple matter of swapping one string for another.

I’ll talk about how people communicate across cultures, even when they are so different. Drawing on my experience as a teacher of english as a foreign language and my own travels and struggles to absorb another people’s language and culture, I hope I’ll change how you think about solving these problems in future.

Hell, I’ll even make you laugh. I hope. The most important thing though, I’ll provoke a discussion, given the diverse multilingual background of the attendees here; it could be a very good one.

Transcript

1. ®
2. How not to offend one billion people Cultured Localisation @ryanstenhouse
3. Story Time
4. ebay.com
5. travlang.com
6. taobao.com
7. • Design was ‘too foreign’ - wasn’t adapted to Chinese tastes. • Lack of local payment options • Poor interface localisation and mistranslation • Poor communication tools for buyers
8. Oh yeah...
9. business-in-guangzhou.com
10. ebay,com
11. How to WIN with one billion people Cultured Localisation
12. What do you see?
13. Good Passing Tests Money Bad Failing Tests Danger
14. Death Misfortune Sadness Wealth Good Luck Happiness
15. But... Localisation
19. The human touch
22. The human touch
23. Translation Tools
27. ‘What’ is only part
28. There’s the why
29. There’s the how
30. The how?
31. How do you say “please” to someone from a culture so alien to you that it doesn’t seem to have a concept of politeness? Question smosh.com
32. It’s a Trap! http://www.djstreetfighta.com
33. Protocol
34. Protocol
35. Protocol
36. Localisation
37. Language
38. Design?
39. Design!
40. Design!
41. The other side
45. Bad localisaiton
46. Looks ridiculous
47. It can amuse
48. But it can also offfend
49. Don’t just translate!
50. Questions?
51. Find me online: http://www.ryanstenhouse.eu @ryanstenhouse on Twitter I work for http://www.freeagent.com and we’re hiring. Come have a chat. Thanks!