Internationalization

Internationalization (I18N) engineering is the process of developing software that supports different languages, different character sets, and all culture-specific dependencies without modifying the software. I18n applies at the design level – to the very core of the application code - and is all-pervasive, affecting over 90% of the code files.

I18n is a pre-requisite for Localization (L10N) where you start seeing foreign characters in the app. I18n ensures that a product or Web site can be localized, that is, made available in a simple way to exchange with native language translators and incorporate the translations back into the code and build/release system. It also ensures that application information is presented in a UI format natural to users from a specific country.

Text Storage and Data Format are two main categories of I18n issues that appear in an application.

RESULT: The internationalized application will be able to:

• Support mock translations, and allow one or more pseudo-locales to be selected by the user
• Have all user-visible text and images external to the application source files
• Integrate with the locale to format date, time, number, and currency
• Support the appropriate Unicode or other encoding used by the locale
• Preparation of a Localization Kit - a centralized package of all externalized UI text and other textual resources such as images, help files, manuals, release notes, packaging boxes and collateral.