Integrating translators in a localization workflow

Translators are one of the most influential teams in the localization process. Their skills and abilities are strongly intertwined with the final result. But translators can't work in isolation from other teams and without additional information about the project. The important aspects of integrating translators in a localization workflow include the following:

• Are all translators adequately briefed about the nature of the product?
• Are all translators instructed in the project (timespan, scope, deadlines, collaborators, etc.)?
• Are all translators schooled in the localization tool?
• Are all translators familiar with the project details (branding, USP, goals, target audience, context), and has a style - guide or communications guideline been agreed upon)? For example, a product will be marketed to children in country A but to teenagers in country B.
• Are all translators being introduced to who will review them, and do they know their contact?

As you can see, there are a lot of aspects you should take your attention to. First, consider the system that can cover the localization process and where you will integrate your team. The localization market offers solutions to simplify collaborative translation processes, with various companies providing differing features. The excellent tool for your business should combine powerful features that can solve your tasks, clear design, and great UX to let your team dive simply.

Remember that translators will spend the most time there, so consider their opinions and convenience. Choosing the best localization management solution for translators is challenging, but we hope this article brings you in the right direction.

Context, context, and one more context

Successful localization is impossible without enough information for the translating team. It's crucial to give enough context, including details about the product, its features, intended use, and any cultural nuances that should be considered during translation.

For example, while translating any game, linguists should clearly understand who this or that character is or what precisely the internal self-made word means. Lingohub knows how important it is to provide additional information for translators and do this organic - your team does not need to spend time finding relevant information:

• The term base automatically provides suggestions inside the editor; the translators can see the additional information about the terms like image, description, context, usage status, etc.
• The style guide is available inside the same UI and connected to the project — no need to find files inside the storage/Google Drive/etc.
• **Context images **show where text is placed directly on the layout and are available inside the editor.
• A project description can be used to bring all the additional information.

All the features above aim to provide as much additional information about the project as possible. The best practice will be including in them the main details:

• Information about the product: purpose, functionalities, and unique selling points.
• Information about the target audience: demographics, cultural background, tone, style, and specific preferences or sensitivities.
• Cultural context: cultural nuances or references present in the source content, like idioms, metaphors, humor, or wordplay, that may need to be adapted or explained in the localized version.
• Industry-specific knowledge: terminology, acronyms, and jargon.

Effective communication

Bad communication is when the team members should spend a lot of time waiting for a response or clarifying minor questions, which can badly affect the localization speed. You should have a rule-based process with the responsible person to clarify possible questions. Let's define the main rules that will help your managers to build communication with translators:

• Schedule the recurring check-ins with translators. The small stand-ups will allow you to discuss progress, questions, failures, and ideas.
• Encourage translators to ask for clarifications instead of "mechanic" translation. Involve translators in the dialog.
• Create a feedback loop where translators can provide feedback on the source content, style guide, term base, or any other challenges.

Not the last role in this process is choosing the correct communication tool. That is why, Lingohub created discussions - the internal feature for communication that allows mentioning people, projects, segments, etc., to solve all the questions in the single UI.

Convenient collaboration

On the other side, translators must have the ability to collaborate with colleagues and managers without constant live pinging. The Lingohub collaborative solutions bring the overview throughout the project from first sight.

• Statuses allow an understanding of which stage are the specific segments at.
• Labels enable the categorization of segments based on the team's needs and provide additional information about the segment group.
• Segment description allows to add info that is visible to the entire team.

Transparent cooperation

Transparency breeds trust, fruitful partnerships, and avoiding misunderstandings. This question is much more critical when we are talking about financial questions. Lingohub offers a range of tools to assist managers and provide translators with a clear overview of their financial documentation.

First of all, the system automatically counts how much effort the translator put into the segment translation. To put it simply, if the segment was translated by machine translation and a human added no changes - there was no effort. If the situation is entirely opposite - it will be a high effort. Based on this, the manager can add four different rates per word - the translator will see these figures in the profile.

When it comes to creating a transaction, Lingohub automatically calculates all changes made by the translator for the chosen time period and multiplies them by rates based on effort. The generated transaction is available for the manager and translator with all calculations inside.

Conclusion

By utilizing localization/translating management tools, integrating translators into the localization workflow becomes significantly easier and more efficient. Lingohub, for instance, offers numerous benefits like collaborative features, allowing translators to work simultaneously on different parts of a project, real-time collaboration, and communication to improve overall productivity. But a picture worth a thousand words - try the Lingohub with a 14-day free trial right now to check all the benefits of building a localization workflow.

If you have any questions or want to learn more about how our solution will help your business - schedule a quick demo call with our team, we would love to help you!