THE LINK BETWEEN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT AND LOCALISATION

Transcription

1 THE LINK BETWEEN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT AND LOCALISATION research on localisation and development processes Malte Ressin José Abdelnour-Nocera Peter Komisarczuk

2 Contents Introduction About software localisation What, why, how and by whom? Basic issues About our research Aims and Methods Preliminary results Mismatch: translation in an engineering methodology Discrepancy between developers and translators Call for participation: our online survey

3 Introduction

4 Introduction Malte Ressin MPhil/PhD student at University of West London since 2009 Topic: Software development processes and localisation Supervisors: José Abdelnour-Nocera, Peter Komisarczuk Worked as software developer and localisation team leader Topic decision out of frustration about a lack of literature relating to both localisation (linguistic view) and localisation (technical view). Who s the audience? Software Engineers? Project Managers? UI designers?

5 About localisation

6 Localisation and Internationalisation Localisation: Adapting content for international markets, cultures and languages: Translation of text Enabling different units, formats etc. Visual adaption of layout, colours etc. Different program behavior Different feature sets Internationalisation: Enabling cultural configurability of a product, e.g. by using placeholders instead of text.

7 Why? Relevance: new technologies new software - new interaction modes and purposes centering on human factors - cultural dependencies. Robotics Ubiquitous computing Augmented Reality Privacy and Data Protection Biometric Recognition Electronic Entertainment Cloud Computing Social Networking...

8 Order Internationalisation = Generalisation Usually conducted by software developers Localisation = Specialisation Localisation Usually conducted by translators

9 Who is who software developer Project management UI designer Customer Localisation Marketing Programmer Localiser

10 Singular and Plural English: Russisch: It takes 1 day. It takes 2 days. It takes 5 days. Для этого понадобится 1 день. Для этого понадобится 2 дня. Для этого понадобится 5 дней.

11 Sort orders English: Spanish (trad.): 1. Lama 2. Llama 3. Loma 4. Mama 1. Lama 2. Loma 3. Llama 4. Mama

12 Challenges Quality: Missing localisation due to unknown localisation requirements or process errors Low quality due to lack of context information Effort/Cost: Repeated translation, caused by project changes Inefficient support of localisation process Missing infrastructure, e.g. no translation memory Redundant manual work like copy&paste, file format conversion

13 About our research

14 Research aims Create a comprehensive scientific model for use in applied agile software development. Identify common localisation issues and their causes Enable recommendations for facilitated localization in software development: Tool usage Process implementation Development guidelines

15 Questions Which factors in development influence cost, quality and effort? Processes: How are development teams and their processes connected to localisers and their processes? Infrastructure: What technical options are used? Collaboration: How do developers and localisers work together?

16 As a diagram Processes Infrastructure Localisation Time Cost Quality Communication

17 Methods Interviews Learn about experiences of practicioners. Survey Gather quantitative data from developers (engineers, project managers, UI designers,...) on cultural competence, attitude towards localisation, process knowledge. Focus groups Refine practicioner accounts through discussions Case studies Gain comprehensive picture of interplay between development processes and localisation

18 Preliminary results

19 Preliminary results Placement of localisation in the development process Conflicting requirements in software development and localisation Collaboration obstacles between engineers and localisers

20 Waterfall Model Specification Planning Development Test Release

21 Localisation in the waterfall model Specification Planning Development Localisation Test Release

22 Localisation in the waterfall model (simship) Specification Planning Localisation Development Test Release

23 Iterative model Specification Development Re-scoping Development Re-scoping Release

24 Localisation in the iterative model Specification Development Re-scoping?? Localisation? Development Re-scoping Release

25 Base requirements of agile development Developers and customers co-located 2. Decreased importance of documentation 3. Requirement finding during development 4. Development processes dynamically adapted to the product 5. Developers are experienced in process adaption 6. Project success through incremental changes 7. Prototypes can be tested (in part) through automated tests 8. NO recycling and generalisation during development 9. Costs of change stay constant during development (see Turk, France, Rumpert: Limitations of Agile Software Processes, 2002)

26 and conflicts with localisation 1. Developers and customers co-located Usually not given with international customers 2. Decreased importance of documentation Documentation imperative for context information 3. Requirement finding during development Detailed planning important for outsourcing translatoin 4. Development processes dynamically adapted to the project Localisation processes are usually static, which is especially true when localisation is outsourced

27 and conflicts with localisation 5. Developers are experienced in process adaption Developers usually have no experience in translation, even if they are multilingual 8. NO recycling and generalisation during development Internationalisation is generalisation 9. Costs of change stay constant during development Effort and cost through repeated translations is immense

28 Limits of agile development Missing support of distributed teams 2. Limits with subcontracting 3. Limits with re-use 4. Limits for very large teams 5. Unsuited for security-critical projects 6. Limits for large projects (see Turk, France, Rumpert: Limitations of Agile Software Processes, 2002)

29 ... and impacts on localisation see Turk et al. (2002) 1. Missing support of distributed teams Translators are often separated from developers 2. Limits with subcontracting Localisation is often outsourced 4. Limits for very large teams Each language nominally adds one localiser 6. Limits with large projects Localisation generally makes projects more complex

30 Developers and localisers: common ground Developer and localiser: Creative workers in front of a screen using signs, symbols and languages.

31 Developers and localisers: work process Developers: Works on dynamic systems Modularisation is important part of work Program code and visual aids preferred Different methodologies available Project changes during development are common Localisers: Works with static texts and symbols Holistic view of product Dependant on documentation Little control over processes Linear work process

32 Perceptions of quality and success Developers: Quantitative QA metrics (lines of code, numbers of bugs, execution speed etc.) Strictly defined goals Success dependant on own abilities Success is clear Localiser: Subjective quality metrics Roughly defined goals Success dependant from available information Success unclear

33 Relationship to products and roles Developer: Usually employed Paid by time Customer Localiser: Usually freelancer Paid per word Provider

34 Cross-disciplinary knowledge Developer: Amateur translator Ideas of translation as software analogies (e.g. translation as mapping) Localiser: Programming usually part of education

35 Example 1 Software developer: Spanish developer: I need a translation for year. Year in Spanish is Año. Software developer : The 15-diode display can t show a tilde (~). What translation can I use? Spanish developer : For gods sake, display the tilde!!!

36 Example 2 Projekt manager: Lokaliser: Projekt manager: For a whitebox version, our product name Black has to be replaced by the customer name MG. All translations will have to be edited. This will take long and be expensive. We thought about that. We will do that using search&replace. Lokaliser: That doesn t even work in English: A Black product, aber An MG product.

37 Conclusion Software development is generally considered an engineering activity. Development processes are respectively tailored to work as done by engineers Software localisation often considered unimportant Seminal differences between software developers (programming) and translation. Corresponding differences between software developers and localisers lead to loss through friction Infrastructure/process opportunities are not fully embraced

38 Call for participation: our online survey

39 Call for participation To progress our research, we re always looking for an exchange of experiences. In case of interest please mail: Soon (on Thursday) an online survey taking ca. 20 minutes. Target population are localisers and developers who have already worked on international software: (until at least 23. December 2011)

40 The End