The internationalization process for graphical images is not a translation process. It is a separate process that may involve graphic designers in supported countries and applies even when no translation is planned. Where text exists within the graphic, a translation process will be required to translate the text.
One key objective to define a Graphics Internationalization Process is to define one “culturally acceptable” graphical image that will work throughout the world. This objective supports the goal to produce one worldwide binary. A single worldwide graphical image minimizes the cost of creating different graphical images for different countries and minimizes your need to manage different images for different geographies through the development and build processes. It allows you to sell one version of the product anywhere in the world. Since graphical images are a cultural problem and not a language problem, if this objective is not followed, it is conceivable that products will have to build different versions of one language depending upon the country the product is going into. This suggests that the result would be complex, costly, and error prone.
Graphics Internationalization Process Overview
The steps in the Graphics Internationalization Process could be as follows:
- Graphics designers create the graphical images.
- Prior to code freeze for your solution, the graphical images along with their context information are sent to designated graphic artists in supported countries. Sufficient time must be allocated in the schedule for turnaround. Graphics Designers involved in supported countries will review the graphic and answer the following two questions:
- Does this image communicate the intended message? and
- Is anything about this image culturally offensive?
- The country contacts provide comments to the original graphic designer on the suitability of the graphical images within their country/region—specifically: within their country/region, does each graphical image convey its intended meaning, and is any graphical image culturally or religiously offensive?
- The designer modifies the graphical images to take into account the comments from the countries.
- The targeted countries do a final review of the graphical images at a suitable time in the development process and sign off that the graphical image is acceptable.
An offering or web site may have dozens, hundreds or even thousands of graphical images. These images include icons, buttons, and other elements that are part of an overall user interface design. Defining such a process helps catch important cultural problems that may limit customer acceptance or customer satisfaction and may result in lost revenues for your organization. To that extent graphical images that meet any one of the following criteria should be reviewed. As more experience is gained with the process you will put in place, the criteria will be further refined.
- New applications with newly designed user interface (UI)
- Major redesign of the UI of an existing application
- Selected new or changed graphical images in an existing application. If an application already has an overall UI design with colors and shapes and screen layout in place, a new graphical image will have many predefined characteristics that have already been reviewed and approved. When a new image is created within the same context, it is a judgment call as to whether the image should be reviewed. (It is expected that if the images are being created by graphic artists that have experience with creating internationalized graphical images, they will be quite familiar with the issues and will be able to easily judge what needs to be reviewed. Graphical images created by artists who are not as familiar with internationalization issues in graphical images such as third-party vendors or programmers may all require review.) The risk associated with adding graphical images to an existing application is assumed to be less than designing a new UI.
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