Years of collaboration
2024
Context
A leading manufacturer of tank monitoring solutions
Otodata is a leading company providing tank monitoring solutions. Otodata designs, develops, produces, and sells tank monitors to businesses worldwide, to increase efficiency and reduce costs. To complement their hardware offerings, they provide an online management portal and a mobile app.
The Nee-Vo app provides precise, real-time readings of all companies’ tanks. The Nee-Vo app lets you request a refill, customise level alerts, track tank levels in real-time, consult usage history, and contact the supplier at the press of a button.
The Online Portal is designed to be user-friendly and accessible from your desktop, tablet, and mobile devices so you can manage your tank monitors from anywhere and at any time.
Aim
Localizing the UI into German and Italian
To support its market expansion in two of Europe’s leading markets – Italy and Germany, Otodata decided to localize its tank monitoring Nee-Vo App and Online Portal into Italian and German.
Otodata needed an experienced software translation partner to optimise the process of UI localization, making it accessible to users in Germany and Italy, improving user experience, and building up brand reputation most efficiently and productively.
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Challenges
Providing German and Italian translations for the UI strings and establishing terminology for the product in Europe
Using the HTML, JSON, and ResX file formats, Otodata provided 3di with the Portal and Nee-Vo App UI strings for translation.
There were two main challenges 3di encountered. The first one was that the software strings, by their nature, do not provide much context for the linguists. Context is crucial for translators because they need to understand the actual meaning of these strings, their function, and where they appear in the UI to communicate the exact information to the end user.
Secondly, the product was new and innovative in the European market. There was no well-established industry terminology in German and Italian languages. 3di had to establish a process that could efficiently produce correctly localized Portal and Nee-Vo app, translate key terms for the new market product, and provide translators with as much context as possible.
Solution
Building a glossary and software localization testing
The 3di team:
- Created a multilingual glossary of Otodata software key terms, including their context for use, so 3di linguists could understand the UI context and be consistent across all products. The multilingual glossary was implemented into the 3di term-base System for the current and subsequent Otodata localization projects.
- Established a Translation Memory, making future translation quicker, consistent, more efficient, and much more cost-effective.
- Introduced a Software Localization Testing process for Otodata. 3di checked the German and Italian translations implemented into the Otodata Portal, as well as into the Nee-Vo App, making sure all translations match the context, all the items are localized appropriately (including units of measurement, data, time format, currency, and so on), and all the UI text is displayed correctly.
The process helped to ensure the quality of the software translation. It also verified that the German and Italian versions of the UI strings were suitable for use in these specific markets and for the designated product. The process also ensured that any potential technical issues were addressed and solved.
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Result
A more efficient approach to creating and managing multilingual UI string translations.
The 3di team:
- Provided localized, user-friendly Nee-Vo App and Portal for Otodata’s market in Germany and Italy
- Helped Otodata save costs and time, thanks to the glossary, Translation Memory, and software testing process
- Helped to improve Otodata’s localization process and management