Create a Localization-friendly Website
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Developing localized websites requires a great deal of localization engineering knowledge. The best-practice tips set out below can give you a head start in creating a localization-friendly website. You may need to customize these practices depending on the structure, complexity and backend design of your website.
Use Unicode When Developing Your Site
An internationalized application uses Unicode for all handling of strings and text. This will prevent most occurrences of garbled text when translated.
Separate Code from Translatable Text
All translatable text should be externalized and separated from the code to make the translation process easier.
Plan for Text Expansion
Leave enough space within your design to allow for text expansion. Typically, you can expect the text to expand 20 to 30 percent when translating into foreign languages. If possible, use dynamically resizing text boxes.
Externalize Styles
Different languages will require the use of different fonts and styles. All styles should be defined in style sheets to avoid tag-level modification during localization.
Minimize Text that is Built into Graphics
Images are costly to localize. If possible, avoid images that contain embedded text. If not, make sure that the text is isolated into separate layers; this will make localization easier.
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This is an excerpt of “Designing Your Website with Localization in Mind.” You can read the full white paper here.
Hanna Golota is the operations lead and a project lead at Globalme Localization and Translation Services. With over seven years in the localization industry, she has managed many successful web localization projects.