Planning Your Web Site for Internationalization and Localization:  Guidelines for Success

In today’s increasingly global economic environment, an organization’s ability to tailor their products and/or services to global markets has become essential for business growth.  The Internet has proved to be an effective means to promote this growth, making it possible for organizations both large and small to market their products and services to the world marketplace.  In pursuing global strategies, however, many organizations are facing difficult challenges in communicating their messages online in a multi-national and multi-cultural environment.

Internationalization and localization are terms that describe the degree in which products, such as web sites or software, are adapted for non-native environments, especially other nations and cultures.  More specifically, internationalization is the process of designing a web site and/or application so that it can be adapted to various languages and regions without further engineering changes.  An internationalized site is as culturally and technically “neutral” as possible, and tends to have a consistent look and feel across all sites (e.g., Analog Devices).  Localization is the more targeted process of modifying a web site or application for a specific region or language to make it both usable and suitable to a foreign audience.  A localized site strives to best serve the needs of a specific culture in terms of language and cultural conventions (e.g., Coca Cola’s web sites for specific regions).

In some cases, localization is simple.  For example, making a U.S. application accessible to British users may require little more than a few spelling changes.  However, making a U.S. application localized for Japanese users will require that the web site not only present information in a different language, but may also require adjustments to text, margins, images, and color, in a manner that is consistent with the customs of the target locale.

This paper focuses on how to prepare your web site for global markets, and identifies the five major steps that must be considered as you develop your internationalization/localization plan.

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