Don’t leave your app half done: add local flavors
App stores like Apple’s iStore are giving app developers and creators unprecedented reach to catapult their apps into larger markets and newer user bases. But no matter how strong, fresh, well-made, and fluid an app is, it’s bound to hit dead ends if it doesn’t cover some app localization basics.
Localization, in short, is simply an attention to detail that makes an app useful for a specific language, segment, or culture.
Without this fundamental plank in place, even a robust and radical app can fall on deaf ears and go unnoticed when approached by a user in a particular country or dialect. To configure localization, an application must also be organically amenable to internationalization. That means developers must, from the start, make the app adaptable to differences in formats, user specifications, and other details that will change from language to language and country to country.
Proper internationalization, in and of itself, goes a long way toward effective application localization.
Here are some suggestions that aspiring iOS developers and gamers might find useful to ensure that the app doesn’t fizzle out when the crunch comes.
Do not wait for the app to be complete before inserting the iOS location. It should be done proactively, only at the coding stage, rather than an afterthought. Internalize the relevant code and strings and deliver them to professional and experienced translators for the desired language. They can deal not only with number, calendar, date, and time formats, but also with other local aspects that can come into play when a user interacts with an app or when the app’s display is triggered.
Export parts and strings in the desired format and provide translators with as much information and context as you can. Differentiate well between the user-facing parts and other parts of the code to speed up the process.
Keep working on iOS localization at your level (image, music, etc.) through the app build process while the translators are working. It’s a mindset and once you’re attuned to the differences that localization addresses, the app would be nimble enough to make sense of many languages and segments when needed.
After importing the translated content, your work begins in a new way. You have to make sure that it is assimilated well and works as you want. Proper and relentless testing is a good way to check the localization effort. This should be done both at the developer level and by allowing some users to test the app to get their perspective and any gaps that may still exist.
Please keep reviewing and updating the app with iOS localization and translation as the app grows and adds new versions. Having standard APIs helps increase the scope and ease of this process.
Sometimes the resources in play can be optimized and the space taken up by the location and the associated cost are reduced by having the regional targeting in the correct order with the language targeting. Markets like US, UK, Australia, APAC; for example; they have the same language of use, English, as long as time differences and minor details are well incorporated.
It pays off, in the long run, to allow enough time and space for the nuances and differences that go beyond the standard time/calendar changes. Like some user and language segments, they work right-to-left instead of left-to-right text direction. Such material contrasts cannot be included at the last moment in the design of an application.
As we can see, the location is an important parameter for the main app stores. Furthermore, the remarkable growth and spread of iOS makes it imperative that developers pay careful attention to this part from the very beginning and well after the app is released.
It’s all about keeping the user experience smooth and seamless.
