Introduction
Assurance is always tied to reliability. People get addicted to anything even slightly relatable. We are obsessed with our cell phones; we have them all the time. This is why mobile application localization has become quite necessary. If you want your business to grow exponentially, you must integrate local mobile apps. The results are excellent and impactful; we have seen it in almost every entrepreneurial strategy.
What is app localization?
App localization is the process of modifying and improving an app so that it appeals to a target audience. Specifically on the geographical basis. It must be ensured that the application is equally attractive and simple to use. The key thing to keep in mind is that your app should contain the same engagement capability everywhere as in the primary region.
7. Translate and prepare an application copy
Mobile app localization involves much more than just translation: while translation focuses on the literal conversion of text from one language to another, mobile app localization ensures that every component of your app – including user interface (UI) elements, special features, in-app copy, graphics, and app store descriptions – is personalized according to cultural preferences, customs, or user expectations.
Why should you localize your mobile app?
According to the data, around 80% of the top five countries for downloads and revenue on Google Play are non-English speaking countries in Europe and East Asia, as are 50% of the top 10 countries for downloads and revenue on the iOS App Store.
Asia accounted for 41% of all app revenue globally, compared to 31% in North America and 23% in Europe.
To expand to localize mobile apps for a wider audience, they must become accessible and linked. Converting your application’s main language into different language interfaces attracts users. It becomes easier to connect with consumers.
1. Increase app engagement
From mega giants to young start-ups, everyone now devotes all their resources to getting to know their audience first.
If you understand your consumer and know what they do or want, it becomes easier to engage with them.
Mobile app localization helps to increase app engagement with all user-centric features.
2. Personalized UX to users
There are several apps with cool features and attractive offers, but they do not attract users. The overall user experience is one of the main factors that attract consumers.
A personalized user experience package will relate even more to consumers and ultimately increase the number of users. Localize mobile apps include personalized UX, enhancing the attractive consumption of users.
3. Join a new market
Growing further in business is the ultimate goal of any business. An app can lose up to 13% users if it fails to localize mobile apps for a local audience.
Mobile app localization helps expand business into a new market and attract new consumers. This can be something interesting for businesses to understand new user trends as well as difficult.
4. Boost downloads
Users do not hesitate to try a new application if they find it interesting. Local Facebook pages experience up to 50% more engagement.
Smartphones have enough cloud space to accommodate unlimited data. Over the years, smartphone users are expected to reach 5,575.24 million by 2025. This means that the market for Google Play and iOS users will increase significantly.
If you have a trending feature app that meets consumer needs in the local language, it becomes quite easy to increase overall downloads.
Types of mobile app localization
Localization minimal viable (MVL)
In a minimum viable localization, only the main content changes, such as the app store description. This may also include app store metadata.
Recommended for startups, MVL delivers results with minimal effort compared to full localization for mobile app localization.
Full app localization
Full app localization involves modifying every aspect of the app. Each app component should be customized for each target market, including the localization of the app store.
Full app localization ensures that users in all markets are comfortable with your app.
How to develop a mobile app localization strategy?
While your mobile app localization strategy may differ from app to app and evolve to meet your app’s needs, it’s a good idea to incorporate localization into your app design and development. You must prepare to be clear with the needs and requests you have.
There are certain areas where it is best to reflect your thinking. Budget, you need to be clear about how much you plan to spend on your app when locating it. Another key factor to consider is the platform you are switching apps to.
Many contradictions can affect you when you start modifying your application. Understand the cultural variation you may be witnessing. Apart from this budget, priority, and much more. The whole approach is different and requires reflection.
Application localization tools
Using a mobile application localization platform to administer and store the texts on a remote server is a popular localization method. Most platforms already offer features such as cross-platform connectors, repository linking, application sharing, and two-way translation synchronization.
1. Localazy
It can be OTA (over-the-air). Moreover, it offers a free tier of 200 keys (terms) with a large number of integrations, including those for React, Vue, Angular, and other lesser-known frameworks.
As well as most major repository hosting services and localization file formats. Additionally, it features an extensive editing process with numerous translation versions.
2. Locate
Lokalise has OTA capability. Version control for localization is already integrated. Support for handling plurals is also included. Localization-related tasks can be delegated and managed.
3. Phrase
You can view the translation context in a contextual editor. It has OTA capabilities and a variety of integration possibilities. It is possible to work on different branches, which is advantageous for larger projects.
4. Purchase Order Editor
An excellent free plan of 1000 strings. For each channel, collaborators can add comments. You can also design a simple file synchronization flow. Web books can help you and save translation history.
How to implement mobile application localization?
After discussing the strategic factors and addressing some potential difficulties with mobile app localization, it’s time to compile best practices for localizing a mobile app.
You can build a localization process that’s integrated into your app development workflow and avoid potentially costly mistakes by using the tips in the sections below, which we’ve broken down into separate categories.
1. Internalization of the application
It is important to structure your application through mobile application localization. Work should be done throughout the app development phase to deeply localize the mobile app so that it is ready for the global market.
The process of creating a localized mobile app that can work in any market without requiring any code changes or UI adaptations once it’s released is known as internationalization.
Here are some common mobile app localization features that require early attention to internationalization:
2. Switching UI strings from code to resource files
Before deploying code, application strings can be stored in resource files, allowing the team to later access these files for translation without having to modify the code itself.
3. Not hard-coding date, time, number and currency formats
Future problems arise when developers hard code software with only one language formats.
To avoid this, date, time, number, and currency formats should be stored in variables that can be used to generate strings at runtime based on local device preferences.
Make sure the formatting meets user expectations and everyone agrees on how to style these elements for different languages.
4. Integrate identical keys on all mobile platforms (iOS and Android)
Instead of developing app strings twice, developers can establish a shared set of built-in app texts compatible with iOS and Android to avoid duplication of localization efforts and make app localization tasks reasonable.
5. Guaranteeing different pluralization rules
Although this may seem like a minor point, app developers should keep in mind how to organize app chains so that pluralization is supported. Each language has various plural forms; therefore, the program should be aware of this when handling things like error messages or app notifications that might show multiple items.
6. Application UI Layout and Design Considerations
The localization of mobile applications should be considered from the beginning of the design of the user interface. The program will be incredibly difficult to locate if the user interface elements are rigid. All languages should be supported by the app’s screen layout, not just one or two (which often happens).
Here are some great UI design guidelines for international apps:
- Maintain flexibility in designing your app to accommodate different languages. Designers should rely on adaptable pixel dimensions and percentage metrics to ensure that the app’s UI resizes smoothly as text expands between languages.
- Considering the different language directions, verify that your application supports languages that read from left to right. The last thing you want is a faulty design or functional difficulties once localization is complete. A change in translation direction can affect anything from button placement to navigation flows.
- Integration of an application design tool via a mobile application localization platform. It is possible to identify design flaws early in the development phase by integrating design tools like Figma or Sketch with an app translation platform. This makes it easier to translate apps and avoid costly bugs in the future.
When the initial localized mobile app development work is complete. The next step begins with content preparation by writers and localizers. Here are some steps that can help you work for application copying.
65% of readers prefer to read content in their native language, even those who are fluent in English.
Helping editors with images and screenshots:
Unrelated UI elements often cause confusion for translators because they are unclear. The process of localizing an app can be hampered as they may need to spend more time getting clarification from app developers on features.
By including app images that provide context for translators so they can better understand app activity, you can eliminate any unclear terms in your app before they even appear.
55% of consumers worldwide only choose websites that offer product information in their language.
Using a translation guide and vocabulary to ensure compliance:
Mobile app localization teams can prevent text consistency by reusing translated segments of text when using your localization software’s translation memory features.
Maintaining a consistent mobile app localization style throughout the app with the help of vocabulary will help you improve marketing strategy and user experience.
Application image localization
Mobile app localization also relies heavily on visuals. To make your apps stand out from the crowd and catch the attention of locals, you should try to localize your mobile app with images for each app market.
Some of the factors you need to keep in mind:
Different assignment of images and text
Avoiding text in graphics will make the mobile app localization process much easier and more efficient.
If your graphics, such as screenshots of apps in the App Store, contain source text that no one can understand or that differs from what you see on the translated screen, it can negatively affect the user experience.
Create a customizable text layer. It will help application developers to use it to generate application strings at runtime as an alternative.
Justify the ethnicity of the image
You should use appropriate and indicative visuals of each market for your local mobile app and app stores. For example, any image displaying an incorrect resemblance to a crop will not be relevant to consumers.
Application localization quality assurance
Push everything back into your localized mobile app once your assets have been fetched and your strings have been translated. While it may be seductive to believe that this marks the completion of the localized mobile app effort, problems can arise if you neglect to check your program for bugs.
The following actions can help you reduce:
Perform language exams:
The easiest strategy to fix errors once your localized mobile app is readily available to consumers is to implement a thorough language review to ensure there are no issues with your content. You may encounter untranslated application strings, a converted UI element that doesn’t make sense in its context, etc.
Perform functional mobile application localization testing and pre-production quality assurance:
Perform app localization tests to assess how your app works and displays in various locales and languages. Unexpected issues, such as poor layout, can sometimes occur.
App Store optimization and localization:
It is an innovative idea to optimize your product for app store search to get the most out of app store exposure. The process of optimizing app titles, keywords, images, descriptions, etc. for app stores is known as app store optimization (ASO). ASO must be done from the start in all languages when using a global application.
Finding the most common keywords in each location is the first step , after which you should edit the original title, summary, and other relevant sections of your localized mobile app as needed. The final step is to think about how different app stores approach optimization. Let’s look at a few factors to consider when localizing an app store.
Screenshot
In App Store Resources, did you provide screenshots? If so, they should also be appropriate for the region. It’s important to make sure local customers can recognize what they see in the image because app screenshots are an essential tool to help you promote your localized mobile app and present it in the best light.
User Generated Content
It is important to pay attention to app reviews and ratings as they can influence the download of certain apps. User reviews and ratings are crucial for app visibility, ranking, prominence, and adoption. therefore, they must be localized for each region.
Key words
The main strategy to grab the attention of app users is to use keywords. The best mobile app localization technique is not always to translate keywords word for word in all App Store languages, as language and culture have a significant impact on an internet search.
The sensible way to go is to conduct keyword research from scratch for each market. By doing this, you can be sure that people who search for related words in their native language in the App Store will come across your app.
Icons
Consider how your icon will look and how it will appear with rounded edges (the iOS app icon) and a square background when you locate your mobile app for Android and iOS (the Android app icon).
Video content
You also need to locate the app’s video resources if you intend to download video material from the App Store. App Store visitors may find it easier to grasp the features and benefits of your app by viewing a localized app video.
Location information
To allow app stores to better analyze your app when users search for your app by location, it’s a good idea to add location information, such as a city or state name, if applicable if your app is location-specific.
Metadata
Increasing app exposure, downloads, ratings and reviews can be achieved by optimizing app metadata for each app store, which is a wonderful first step towards increasing app store revenue. To encourage users to download your app, you need to localize app titles and descriptions so that they appear in app stores in all applicable geographies.
The Challenges of Effective Application Localization
Whether you want to localize your software for all markets or just a few specific ones. There are chances to cross several obstacles. Not only do challenges slow down the whole process, but they can also cause problems if not resolved ahead of time.
1. Unforeseen delays and additional costs
While starting a new business, few goals are set. Some are short term and can be done at the end of the project. Then, for long-term development, there are also targets. Achieving these goals requires keeping the process prepared.
Compared to posts published internationally, geo-targeted content can engage an audience 6 times more effectively.
When it comes time to modify software for new markets , this error can lead to problems that you cannot resolve without incurring delays and additional expense.
Automating and centralizing manual tasks can undoubtedly help reduce costs and speed up application localization. If app development is not planned with mobile app localization in the account from the start, it is unlikely to be extremely useful.
Taking care of app internationalization in the initial stages of app development and design is the best way to ensure a seamless app launch. You can manage app translation efforts and costs more effectively when your app is designed from the start to accommodate different languages.
2. Quality issues detected when exiting the app
Many localized apps are handed over to the app stores only to find that the program is completely unusable due to app localization errors, such as mistranslated or even inconsistent app commands. When your software is first released, localization issues can damage its reputation, drive people away because they can’t use it properly, and even lead to negative reviews.
Investing in testing and quality assurance for each language is the best strategy to avoid app localization errors during app release.
Consider using pseudo-localization (replacing all localizable UI elements with a pseudo-language) in situations where it is not possible to thoroughly test every string, layout, date, time, number, and currency format.
This will allow you to see if any source strings contain errors that need to be fixed before the translation process begins.
For developers to analyze usability, readability, space requirements, and user input, here are many pseudo-localization tools.
3. App localization should be part of the process
If localization is organized as a separate task outside of the agile framework, it can take longer than developing applications in a rapidly evolving workflow.
Due to delays in app release and the inability of app developers to work on new features while awaiting app translation, the need to wait for app localization before app launch can increase costs.
Additionally, continuous communication and feedback loops between all stakeholders, including translators, break down, resulting in potential loss of time, productivity, quality, and money.
4. Inadequate app localization technology
The right strategy helps to complete the task on time. You need to integrate the right development process.
Your workflow will suffer if the wrong tools are not in place; lengthy email exchanges will become common practice, developers will spend more time searching for application strings and sending to interpreters, application releases will take longer due to bottlenecks, errors will go undetected, and localization quality will suffer.
Using a specialized mobile app localization system that was created from the initial concept with the developer, product teams, and a focus strategy in mind can easily solve these problems.
Benefits of using an app localization platform
Your application process must be synchronized with your localized mobile application:
Streamline the operating process
The translation process becomes much faster and easier by eliminating manual work. The manual process of separating code from copy and reversing the process when translation is complete is no longer necessary for developers. The task can be done quickly.
Manage your project easily
With the help of a mobile app localization platform, it becomes easy and efficient to manage and track the entire process in a single platform.
It becomes quite easy to integrate the whole mobile app localization process. You can track and manage all tasks. Moreover, with the help of a platform, all the integration can be done quickly and easily.
How can MOBOLOGICS help you?
MOBOLOGICS is a leading provider of custom mobile application development services. Our team of experienced professionals are always ready to take on any challenge, including complex CRMs, e-commerce applications or social media. We perform in-depth analysis to locate applications and provide the best results for smooth operation.
We offer the kind of mobile app development services that are highly effective in communicating with target consumers. To help you localize the mobile app, we have a team of experts to help you in your efforts. Our QA professionals perform extensive testing to ensure your app works flawlessly. All of our apps, whether hybrid or native, go through our rigorous testing process before being launched.
Tips for localizing your app
If you are considering tackling localization for your app. Then there are the following tips that might help you get started:
leave early
Consider localizing your app early in the app development process.
When developing an application, you must keep in mind that you must also include other languages. An adaptive application development process enables support for different languages other than English. You know the whole process is getting easier.
It becomes quite convenient to include other languages in the application if it was easier from the start. The overall goal of this process is to simplify the translation process.
Fewer than 400 million people in the world use English as their first language, although it is spoken by nearly 75 billion people worldwide.
Avoid constraints and go beyond translations
The attractive features of an app include not only the translated language but also the soundness of the app. To make it easier, you must have tried translating something in google translations. It does the job of translating the language, but it might not make sense in another language. Sometimes it’s more than just converting the language. It is about adapting all the essence of the region.
The format must remain the same
Remember to translate in the same order. Now, the order differs according to the different linguistic diversities around the world. When localizing your application, keep this in mind. The languages you change must incorporate the names in the correct order.
Several ways to pluralize
English is the most dominant language on this planet. Its use is relatively simple. Changing sentences to plural is quite handy. Now, when switching applications, it is essential to ensure that the plurals change in the same way.
Localization can increase website visits by 70%, search traffic by 47%, and conversion rates by 20%.
And this for a single language. Develop a fixed message and allow users to add variable elements based on a collection of plurals from other languages.
Avoid text embedded in images
Images have more impact on users. It should be noted that while the entire application is switched. The text on the images should also change. Using photos with text interferes with other mobile app localization efforts in your program. To provide consumers with a tailored experience, images must be localized for each location. If this is not possible, you can design your application so that images can be shown and hidden quickly.
Location testing is mandatory
For location testing, a variety of devices with different screen sizes that are typical for use in a particular region should be used. This helps to ensure that the whole process goes smoothly. No one would want to give a terrible experience to new users. Retention is key, only a bug-free experience will improve overall reach.
Before starting any mobile application localization procedure, experts advise performing a “ pseudo-localization test ” to ensure that the program is internationalized. Your business will cross language and national boundaries if you can turn a successful local app into a globally successful one . The goal should be to meet the needs of employees and customers.
Application localization provider
Localizing mobile apps is not an easy task. It takes time, skill and efficiency. There are many reasons why companies prefer to switch to localizing their application provider . Most app developers choose to work with a localization provider who not only translates, internationalizes and localizes your app, but also combines business and technology expertise to advise changes based on considerable experience.
Conclusion
We have explained in detail the detailed analysis and procedure of mobile application localization . Integrating app localization has many benefits beyond just expanding the user base. The inclusions are text content management, code duplication reduction, and content synchronization. Using one of the location services is a decent technique for implementing location, although it might be overkill for small apps. Managing text using Google Sheets is a quick and easy approach.
Any action you take to streamline mobile app localization procedure after deciding to go ahead can help you save a lot of time and money. This will affect the success of your localization efforts. Ultimately, the more app users you attract and make them happy, the faster you’ll get into the target market and the more accurate your location will be.
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