The World Is Awaiting: Internationalization Testing Is Your Key to Success

Globalization has opened the doors to quickly exchanging information across different countries and cultures. This tendency allows businesses to adapt their services to the most diverse users’ needs. This also relates to digital products. If you want to reach a wider pool of audiences and provide a personalized experience for them, you have to make your product compatible with the requirements. This is when internationalization testing is needed. So, let’s see how internationalization software testing helps to make the digital product available and convenient for more users.

What Is Internationalization Testing?

Internationalization testing, also called “i18n,” which refers to the number of letters in the word “internationalization” from “i” to “n,” is a type of testing that ensures the application works seamlessly and correctly on different markets.

This type of software testing helps the quality assurance (QA) team discover whether the product is compatible with different languages, time formats, currencies, and cultural differences.

Internationalization testing is not only about translating the text of the website or application. It further determines whether the app can be accessible and understandable for diverse target audiences without changing the code.

Localization vs Internationalization Testing

Even though these two types of testing seem to have the same purpose, QA specialists don’t choose one approach as they are performed dissimilarly. The difference between localization testing and internationalization testing is that the first type helps to adapt the program. In contrast, the second one assists in developing software already compatible with various languages, time formats, currencies, units of measurement, and other indicators.

Internationalization testing goes first in the product development process. It prepares the ground for localization testing. The I18n investigation prepares the database so that it can be configured in the future instead of hardcoding every language separately.

Localization testing is carried out by QA teams and translators on the groundwork of internationalization testing results.

What Does Internationalization Testing Cover?

This testing technique can adapt your software to the following differences in cultures.

Languages and Alphabets

How languages are displayed and the keyboard allows you to type is totally different for a person from the US or UAE. With the methods of i18n testing, you can ensure your app adapts to the distinctiveness of other languages, like writing from left to right and vice versa or displaying letters with accents.

Date and Time Formats

By adjusting the date and time format, you can avoid user confusion. For example, your customer has purchased a subscription, and the receipt states that it renews on 03/09. A person from the US will understand the auto-renewal date as March 9th, and someone from France will think about September 3rd. This might create misunderstandings and even conflicts.

Currency and Numbers

The way decimals, commas, and thousand separators are written differs in some countries. A thousand separators will be a point in the US, while in German, it is a comma. You can recognize those differences with internationalization testing and save your customers from uncertainty.

Cultural Sensitivity

Even the color in which your software is designed should be adaptive. For example, people from warm climate countries would prefer to see warm and bright colors, while those who live in cooler climates intuitively choose less saturation and more neutral colors. Other aspects, like symbols or humor, can differ for every culture. We help to prevent misinterpretations by implementing i18n testing.

Internationalization Testing Scenario Example

Let’s imagine an internationalization testing example when your user is Italian and lives in the US but prefers to read the text in the native language. But by default, all applications are shown in the English language.

You offer a fitness application that has instructions on how to work out. The user downloads the app and sees the exercises, which are all in English. But there is a function to change the language, and everything correctly translates to the Italian language.

The language, date format, and currency are not the only things to consider for websites. Even offerings can change when switching to a different language.

Such instant and correct platform adaptations are possible only if primarily internationalization is conducted.

Advantages of Internationalization Testing

If you plan to reach the global market, internationalization testing will benefit you:

• Increased reach of the target audience. Once you adapt your platform to various cultures and languages, more diverse customers can use it.

• Avoidance of misinterpretations. Cultural differences imply understanding some things with various senses. A misunderstanding of the content will not play in your favor. At the very least, the user will go to competitors, and at the very most, there may be a misunderstanding during the purchase, which may lead to a refund or a wrong impression of your business.

• Increased revenue and conversion. People will not buy from you if they don’t understand the language. Most consumers prefer to read in their native language, as shown in the above-case scenario. Providing that possibility will create a personalized experience for users.

• Easy scalability. When you prepare the ground for localization, further changes, testing, and implementation of new features will be easy.

• Increased loyalty to a brand. Localized applications are downloaded more often than in one or a few languages. Adaptation to cultural differences will create the concept that you care about your customers from around the globe.

Challenges of Internationalization Testing

QA specialists often face these challenges when conducting i18n testing.

• Identifying the target audience. It is very complicated to initially circle out the primary audience to adapt the product. Once you release the software, you can add more localizations, but the first ones are difficult to determine.

• Processing multilingual content. It is a huge challenge for testers to cope with language differences. Sometimes, the help of translators is needed, as the complexity of the language structure may be beyond the reach of technical specialists.
• Studying cultural sensitivity. To make the application neutral to all misinterpretations, QA testers must revise and check all the content for cultural sensitivity.
• Enabling access to the necessary infrastructure. Once the specifics of the languages and other elements are defined, testing specialists often resolve the problem of accessing the infrastructure. For example, to test the Japanese language, they should not go to Japan but access the configurations in other ways.

• Translating to right-to-left languages. When enabling the Arabic language, the whole layout should be changed. However, the user interface (UI) should remain the same. So if the language changes how the elements are shown, the UI must also be adapted.

How to Perform Internationalization Testing: Best Practices

Implementing Unicode into the software infrastructure is insufficient to ensure the application will be compatible with the language differences. That is why QA teams follow certain practices when conducting internationalization testing.

Implementing Early

Internationalization and localization should be included from the very beginning of product development. If you code a program already thinking about the i18n approach, it will be easier to adapt the platform when adding new features.

Supporting Unicode

The Unicode format allows a program to display elements like punctuation or letters with accents. Thus, you will not have to add a separate font when adding a new language to localization. It will be stored within the Unicode system.

Avoiding Hard-Coding UI Elements

Often, developers create such elements as buttons, menus, or pop-up notifications without the possibility of altering them. However, this will result in their inability to be translated into other languages. Also, it will not be possible to recognize the text on the elements during the internationalization testing.

Testing Layout

When translating into other languages, the layout changes, as in one language, a word may take, for example, five characters, while in the other, it is nine. Thus, even if the translation is correct, there might not be a proper rendering. Testing the layout after the changes is crucial to ensuring everything displays correctly.

Including Localization with Internationalization

Even though internationalization and localization are different processes, they are not separated. By including localization testing in the i18n testing routine, the testers can identify and fix more bugs before the product release.

How to Conduct Internationalization Testing on Real Browsers and Devices

A huge challenge that makes internationalization testing in software testing difficult is testing on real devices and browsers. Users can access a product from numerous locations using diverse types of browsers and mobile devices. In real-life testing conditions, predicting and providing every type of device to conduct internationalization testing is impossible.

Some might come up with a decision to use simulators and emulators. However, they don’t give accurate results, and a QA team will have to dedicate a lot of time and resources for their installation and configuration.

The solution for internationalization testing tools is to use cloud-based platforms to check the software on real browsers and devices.

Conclusion

Internationalization testing encompasses many aspects of the platform and ensures it is compatible with cultural differences like languages, time and date formats, currency, measurements, and others. Our company conducts this type of testing by implementing modern techniques and approaches. If you want to make your product accessible to the whole world, reach out, and we will ensure your software is available for every user, no matter the location.