What's Localizability readiness and how we can achieve it from the English content creation phase

Last week we had a couple of public holidays days, and I took the opportunity to take a trip through Spain to the Valencian Community. It is a beautiful area where they have a little bit of everything, good beaches, good food (the paradise of paellas and rice!).

There are also beautiful inland villages, and there are many castles to visit. One of my favorites is the Papa Luna Castle, in the coastal area of Peñiscola. From the castle there are beautiful views of the sea, the gardens, the seaport ..., and I really liked the lighthouse.

Some glimpses of the wonders that can be found in the area of Peñiscola, lighthouses, castle, sea and delicious rice!

I love the nautical lighthouses; in these times, we live, with applications like Citymapper or similar, that they even tell me in which subway wagon is better to sit for a transfer... I find it incredible that before the sailors arrived good port with the help of the lighthouses.

Lighthouses are a reference to reach the destination, and the lighthouse that serves me as an analogy to get to port when localizing a digital product is the concept of localizability readiness.

Our industry specializes in using strange names to define what we do (the fact that we have something called internationalization says it all).

But what is localizability readiness? Keep on reding and I'll explain it to you

Localizability readiness is a series of processes and activities that optimize a product for a worldwide launch.

It's all about incorporating localization from the beginning in the software development phase. In many cases, localizability readiness is synonymous with adopting best practices for crucial aspects such as UI language expansion, font implementation, or support for regional time/date or numbering formats, to name a few.

And while it is true that all these technical steps are necessary, it is no less true that a fundamental aspect of achieving the so desired localizability readiness is related to how the content is created from minute 1,or in other words, how the content is created in English....

It's hard to have international growth today if you don't stop thinking about creating global content.

If the content is created from the beginning with Localization in mind, the global reach of a product will be greater.

Localization is a complex and multilevel activity that requires an entire set of skills and expertise that often are overlooked when the content is created.

If the content is originally designed considering that each market is different (i.e. written for localization/globalized), then the localization activities can be streamlined to take significantly less energy, time and resources. More importantly, it will facilitate greater engagement and customer experience because the content has been created with the customers' needs in your target market in mind.

It may be natural for an English mother-tongue content writer to use idiomatic expressions, metaphors, cultural references, slang, or complex sentences. It may even give them the feeling that they are adding value to the product with that approach. And yes, perhaps for the domestic market in which the writer is involved, it may be true that it does add value; however, if the content is not created with Localization in mind, then it’s going to be extremely challenging to achieve Localizabiity readiness

By doing the opposite, not writing with Localization in mind, we will incur higher costs, longer turnaround times, and even low-quality localized products.

To avoid this situation, follow the tips below as you develop content.

This infographic, summarizes best practices I've seen during my career that help create highly localizable content.

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The lighthouse's history as an element of maritime safety has always been linked to human navigation since old times. I would love it if, in a few years' time when we look back, we can say the same about localizability readiness and how writing English for global audiences was the lighthouse of our industry to create world-ready digital products

@yolocalizo