8 localization trends you should tend in 2024

2024 is here and brings new challenges, dreams, and, of course, localization trends. The Lingohub team has prepared this article to help you stay on the localization wave, implement the best approaches for your business, break language barriers, and start 2024 with new ideas. Find below 8 approaches that will change your localization experience and will bring a piece of magic to it.

Trend 1. Machine translation post-editing

The translation process can be long and tedious, especially when linguists start every time from scratch and translate identical content daily. The post-editing approach can speed up the process and add a creative, not a routine part. That means that initially, all texts are translated by machine translation, and then translators provide just the needed edits. Thus, your localization will speed up, and costs will be reduced. To implement a post-editing approach, you need the basic things that will allow your translator to work:

• style guide,
• glossary,
• well-prepared source text with no mistakes,
• and, of course, the machine translation tools.

Let's overview these points more precisely on the Lingohub example, and (spoiler) we have one more tool that will make the post-editing much faster.

So, working with Lingohub, you can set up the prefill rules so that every new source text will be automatically translated with a combination of engines - Google Translate, DeepL, and Amazon Translate. But this is only part of our abilities. If you connect the style guide to your project, the machine translation will use the formality requirements from there. So, from scratch, the translation is more detailed, concrete, and accurate.

After the first part (machine translation), we are going to the second - proofreading (post-editing.) Lingohub provides a quality check suggestion showing errors like wrong terminology usage, extra or missed spacing, etc. So, the translator shouldn't recheck terms, names, etc., if they are uploaded to the system.

Lingohub tip: To make the post editing maximum fast - you can also use the Lingohub translation memory feature. Instead of machine translation, you can reuse your approved text and never translate the same content twice.

Trend 2. Continuous localization

As agile development workflow has been a popular approach in the software development environment for a long time, your localization process should also be flexible to allow fast time-to-market and new edits to be implemented. That's why the continuous localization approach is necessary for many teams. It unifies your development and translation teams, synchronizes their efforts, and speeds up the entire development process.

Let's look at how this can work in the schema below. Lingohub allows the localization projects to connect with repositories (GitHub, GitLab, Azure, etc.) When changes in the source text are made, they are automatically detected and sent to the Lingohub project, and the translation team receives notifications. Once translations are approved, they can be immediately published by pushing back into the repository and released. So, the entire team works as a single mechanism without additional communication, pings in chats, and so on.

Trend 3. Transcreation

Emotional connection with users plays a crucial role. The research made by Motista showed that emotionally connected customers have 306% higher lifetime value and recommend brands more often. The content is a significant part of the company strategy that can build this emotional connection. That's why we have added transcreation to our list. Transcreation (translate + create) is a process of non-literality content translation with high creativity.

Such an approach can only be successful with deep knowledge of the cultural context and fluency in the target audience's language because transcreation targets the emotional impact of the message. Thus, companies should find professionals from specific regions, which can become a new challenge. Knowing such stumbling blocks, Lingohub does its best for customers' convenience and provides professional translators. Any Lingohub user could use the help of skilled linguists for more than 40 languages, including dialects, for the best results in the shortest time.

Trend 4. Automation

The times when each step was processed by humans sink into oblivion. Automation is everywhere, from big data to small everyday routines, and localization isn't an exception. New approaches provide strong process acceleration (read case study...here link) and avoid human mistakes. We mentioned some automation with MT and continuous localization in the first paragraphs. Here, we'll discuss localization management automation. As localization is a complex process, the managers can have many projects requiring attention. They should approve edits and translations, set up the correct statuses, and sometimes add some edits for a large amount of the content. That's why Lingohub provides a few tools that automate working with text segments. Workflows. With them, localization managers can craft highly efficient workflows that combine multiple steps for optimal text processing. For instance, recheck some segments with quality checks, set up statuses after this, remove unnecessary spaces, etc., ensuring the localization process is streamlined and error-free. Bulk actions. This feature allows quickly changing the statuses or labels for specific segments, deactivating them, or changing translatability.

Trend 5. Design localization

Entering new markets is always challenging as you compete with local providers native to the audience, which 100% wouldn't stun the users by using inappropriate word construction, symbols, etc. One of the most essential parts of localization is the visual content, which is paramount as it is the first thing the user sees. Besides the color palette, fonts, photos, and so on, you should consider text length and direction (for instance, Arabic is a right-to-left language).

Here we come to the main question - when creating a new design for a localized version, how can you account for the differences in text length and other variables? The general way is to translate and copy/paste text into the design template. But designers can't start without a translation, sometimes taking weeks, and constant copy-pasting requires hours of manual work. Such an approach looks outdated and time-consuming.

Our team provides a Figma plugin to improve the design localization process for Lingohub customers. Almost instant text transfer from Figma to Lingohub project and vice versa, combined with the prefill feature, enables fast pre-translation and text fitting. Besides the option above, one significant additional advantage exists - automatically generated screenshots. Translators can see all text segments placed on a screenshot and thus have much more context for their work.

Trend 6. Multilingual client support

The customer experience plays a crucial role in the business's success. Based on the statistics, 61% of customers with just one negative experience would switch to the competitors, and 90% of clients are ready to pay more for companies with great customer service. Customer support can differ - from chatbots and operators to FAQ resources and Help Centers. When talking about live operators, finding local experts or individuals with a firm grasp of the language is important. However, when translating written content, Lingohub can fully localize it for you. We offer support for over 30 file formats, allowing you to translate any content, as well as a range of integrations to help you localize your Zendesk and Intercom Help Centers. With just a few clicks, you can sync articles, sections, and categories while ensuring a uniform style and avoiding mistakes with our powerful CAT tools.

Trend 7. Instant translation

AI (artificial intelligence) is one of the most prominent approaches in localization. Nowadays, AI-powered translation engines like ChatGPT offer more comprehensive translation abilities, especially for creative content, than well-known machine translation engines. They allow adapting content, paraphrasing it, and can learn from the documentation like style guides and glossaries. AI can enhance productivity in multiple ways, and one such way is through its ability to provide instant translations. This option allows users to translate their designs into different languages without delay, increasing their efficiency and effectiveness in communicating with a worldwide audience.

Trend 8. Real-time collaboration for localization teams

Companies implementing effective internal communication tools are 3.5 times more likely to achieve better results. Effective collaboration between employees and inside the company impacts productivity, trust, turnover, and motivation.

Localization as a complex process is not an exception and requires well-designed collaboration with no delays. That's why the correct TMS (translation management system) is the first step for forming a productive team collaboration and allows at least x2 acceleration. Using the Lingohub example, we will show how this can be achieved.

1. No file sending - no manual content exchange. Get rid of files back and forth, as your repositories and apps can be integrated and synchronized directly with the Lingohub project.
2. Less time for content checking and approving because Lingohub provides tools like quality checks and term bases that will alarm about violating predetermined criteria.
3. Synchronization with repositories allows developers and translators to check real-time content changes. Your teams will see any edits without additional communication, which is extremely important for time-to-market speed up.
4. All data is structured in one place. No matter what type of file you need to localize - Figma design, DOCS, XML, IDML, etc. - Lingohub supports any of them. Users can easily manage their projects more organized by splitting them into different folders based on their content types, goals, or any other relevant criteria. Thus, finding a project to check progress is simple.
5. The team can discuss any localization-related question inside Lingohub without switching to another app. The discussion feature enables communication about specific text segments, mentions users, initiates dialogues, and attaches additional information.

The points listed above are the parts of abilities that can be accessed through Lingohub. If you would like to get more information, about our mobile, website and web application localization services please look at our pricing page, which includes a comprehensive list of our capabilities. Additionally, we want to highlight that all CAT features are available to all users regardless of their chosen pricing plan, and of course, you can start your Lingohub journey with a 14-day free trial.

We hope this article brings new ideas for your 2024 localization plan; stay tuned with us to get more information about the industry for your business.