Translation troubles? This podcast is for you! In episode 173 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Bill Swallow and special guest Mike McDermott, Director of Language Services at MadTranslations, share strategies for overcoming common content localization challenges and unlocking new market opportunities.

Mike McDermott: It gets very cumbersome to continually do these manual steps to get to a translation update. Once the authoring is done, ideally you just send it right through translation and the process starts.

Bill Swallow: So from an agile point of view, I am assuming that you’re talking about not necessarily translating an entire publication from page one to page 300, but you’re saying as soon as a particular chunk of content is done and “blessed,” let’s say, by reviewers in the native language, then it can immediately go off to translation even if other portions are still in progress.

Mike McDermott: Exactly. That’s what working in this semantic content and these types of environments will do for a content creator. You don’t need to wait for the final piece of content to be finalized to get things into translation.

Related links:

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• MadCap Software
  
• MadTranslations
  
• Accelerate global growth with a content localization strategy (podcast)
  
• Lost in translation? Create scalable content localization processes
  

LinkedIn:

• 
  
• Bill Swallow
  
• Mike McDermott
  

Transcript:

Bill Swallow: Welcome to the Content Strategy Experts podcast, brought to you by Scriptorium. Since 1997, Scriptorium has helped companies manage, structure, organize, and distribute content in an efficient way. In this episode, we explore strategies for conquering localization challenges, and unlocking new market opportunities. Hi everybody. I’m Bill Swallow, and with me today is Mike McDermott from MadCap Software. Hey Mike.

Mike McDermott: Hi Bill.

BS: So before we jump in, Mike, would you like to provide a little background information about you, who you are, what you do at MadCap?

MM: Sure. My name is Mike McDermott. I am the director of language services at MadCap Software working with our MadTranslation Group. And we support companies that work in single source authoring in multichannel publishing tools like those offered from MadCap Software for IXIA and MadCap Flare and Xyleme and other tools.

BS: So Mike, what are some of the challenges you’ve seen and what works for overcoming some of these localization challenges?

MM: One of the main challenges I see with companies that come to us, and they typically come to us because they’re looking at working in an XML-based authoring tool and they’re curious about the advantages it has for translation. And one of the biggest challenges I see initially with these companies is just figuring out what content needs to go into translation when you’re working in different types of tools. And one of the ways I see to solve that problem is working in a tool where you have the ability to tag certain content and identify content for different audiences or different purposes. It just makes it simpler to identify that content and get it straight into translation and removes a lot of the human error around packaging up content and trying to figure out yourself what files, house texts that might be translatable for whatever the output is that you’re looking to build. So just working in those tools I see inherently helps with translation because it helps you identify exactly what needs to be translated and it gets it into translation much quicker.

BS: So I think we’re talking about semantic content there and making sure that you have all the right metadata in place so that you can identify the correct audience, the correct, let’s say versions of the product, whether to translate or not, and any other relevant information about the content. So you’re able to isolate the very specific bits of content that need to be translated and omit a lot of the content that necessarily isn’t needed for that deliverable.

MM: Exactly, Bill. It lets the technology tell you what needs to be translated in what houses text versus you trying to go through a file list and determine what do I need to send out to a translator to translate. The flip side of that is to just send everything for translation, but it’s very rare that anything in any given project for any type of system is going to need to be translated. So by tagging it in that way, you can quickly get into the translation and get things moving. And what I see happening at the end of these projects, oftentimes when you’re not working in those types of systems is you end up finding bits and pieces of content or different files that ended up needing to be translated that missed that initial pass. Now they have to go back through translation and you’re delayed. So just getting everything right the first time and relying on the tools to tell you exactly what needs to be translated by looking up metadata or different tags just simplifies the process and speeds everything up, helps translation get done quicker and just improves time to market for the end user to get their content out.

BS: So it sounds like it reduces a good amount of friction, especially with regard to finding missing bits and pieces that should have been translated and weren’t, and then needing to go back and make sure that’s done in time. What are some other ways that people can reduce friction in their translation workflow?

MM: Well, a big emphasis for us over the past few years around removing friction is working with connectors and different technologies that can orchestrate the translation process. So we can automate a lot of this and remove the bottlenecks around someone having to, like I said before, manually go into a set of files and package things up for a translator, zip up files, upload them to different locations, and they just get passed around and things can happen when working that way, even outside of just missing files. So working with connectors and these technologies that can connect directly into these systems and get the text right into translation, removing all those friction points just eliminates a lot of room for error in project delays, bottlenecks for tasks that can be easily handled by modern technology.

BS: And I assume that there’s probably some technology there as well that kind of govern other things, other parts of the workflow, like review, content validation, that type of thing?

MM: Exactly, exactly. So we’re trying to automate the flow of data into the different points in translation and then get the content ready. For example, for reviewers, you mentioned reviewers. So once content gets into translation, we can get it right into the translation system from the authoring environment that the customer’s working in, get it into translation. And as soon as the translation is done, a human reviewer on the client side or on our side or whoever can be notified that this content is ready for translation and it just helps keep things moving. So now it’s on them to complete their translation. And once that’s done, the process can continue on and the automated QA checks, the human QA checks can be done at that point, and then the project can be pushed back to wherever it needs to go and put into publication. But by automating the steps and plugging in the humans where they provide the most value, it just removes the time costs in error-prone steps that don’t need to be there.

BS: So it sounds like a lot of it does come down to saving a good deal of time. I would also imagine that these types of workflows, they also help streamline a lot of the publishing needs that come after the translation as well.

MM: Correct. And that’s kind of why we started MadTranslation when we did, was to provide our customers a place to go to work with the translation agency that understood these tools and understand how these bits and pieces come together to build an output. We put it together to provide our customers a turnkey solution where they can get a working project back where they can quickly get into publication. By removing the friction points and using modern technology to automate a lot of these processes, we’re able to get things into translation and add a translation into the final deliverable much faster. So once that happens, we can build the outputs and we can check if it requires a human check on it, things can get to that point much quicker, and we’re not waiting for somebody to manually pull down files and putting them into another location so the next actually take place. We want to automate that part of it so we can get to that final output into a project file where a customer can plug it into their publishing environment and get it out as quickly as possible. A lot of the wasted time is around those manual steps, and when it comes to validation and review, it’s just the reviewers and validators maybe not being ready for the validation or not being educated on how it will work. So it’s important to make sure that everyone in that process knows how it’s going to be done, when things are going to be ready for the review or the QA checks. And then the idea from there is to just feed the content in via connectors, removing the friction point and just send it through. And this is necessary, especially when you’re doing very frequent updates and kind of a more of an agile translation workflow. It gets very cumbersome to continually do these manual steps to get to a translation update. Once the authoring is done, ideally you just send it right through translation and the process starts.

BS: So from an agile point of view, I am assuming then that you’re talking about not necessarily translating an entire publication from page one to page 300, but you’re talking about as soon as a particular chunk of content is done and it’s “blessed,” let’s say, by reviewers in the native language, then it can immediately go off to translation even if other portions are still in progress.

MM: Exactly. Exactly. And that’s what working in this semantic content and these types of environments will do for a content creator is you don’t need to wait for the final piece of content to be finalized to get things into translation. So as you said, it becomes even more important when you’re doing updates because you don’t want to have to send over the entire file set every time you’re doing an update. Whereas when you’re working in a more linear format like Word, you end up having to send that full file every time, and the translation agency is likely reprocessing it using translation memory. But all that stuff still takes time and working in these types of tools, you can very quickly identify those new parts or those bits that you know are ready for translation, tag them or mark them in some way and send them through the translation process.

BS: Very cool. So a lot of the work that we’re seeing now on the Scriptorium side of things is in re-platforming. So people have content in an old system or they have, say a directory full of decaying word files, and they want to bring it into some other new system. They want to modernize, they want to centralize everything, basically have a situation where they’re working in data or some other structured content, bring it into semantic content. What are some of, I guess, the benefits of doing that give you as far as translation goes when you’re looking at content portability? So being able to jump ship from one system to another.

MM: I think working in those systems where the text or the content is stored away from the output that you’re building has a lot of benefits to not only translation being able to just get the text that needs to be translated, exported out of the system and then put back where it needs to go. But it really future-proofs you and gives you the portability that you talk about to make changes because the text is stored in a standard format that can be ported versus you see some organizations getting locked into a closed environment to where when it goes to make a change, it requires certain types of exports to other type of file types that other tools can then import. But by storing them in a standard way in XML, for example, it gives you that flexibility in a future proves you from being locked into any one scenario.

BS: Excellent. So I have to ask, since I’ve come from a localization background as well, what’s one of the hairier projects that you’ve seen or one of the hairier problems that people can run into and in a localization workflow?

MM: One of the challenges we run into sometimes around client review, when you start incorporating validators into the translation system and include them as part of the process, when you get multiple reviewers. Sometimes that will happen where a company will assign a reviewer for every language, but you might have different people reviewing the same set of content. I mean, that’s the biggest delay that we see with projects is translations delivered and then the translation is dumped on a native speaker within the company’s desk and they’re asked to review it and they’re not ready to do the review, it’s not scheduled and it can delay the project. That’s one of the biggest delays we see. So that’s why we try at the front end of a project to figure out on the client side, what’s going to happen after we deliver this project, after we send the files, is the content going to be reviewed or validated? If so, let’s figure out a way to incorporate them into our translation system where they can review the translations before we build the outputs and do all the QA checks. So that’s one of the hairier situations in terms of time delays. Expectations around just time in general have always been a thing in localization. As you know, people can be surprised as to how long it can take for a translator to get through content. I mean, the technology is there certainly to speed it up. Since we’ve started MadTranslations a little over 10 years ago, we’ve seen the translation speed increase quite a bit, but it still takes time for a good translator to get through that content and know when to stop and do the research that’s needed to get a technical term right. So that’s one of the surprise moments I think for new buyers of localization is the time that it can take and there’s solutions in place, like I said, to make it go faster. But if you want that human review and that expertise and the cognitive ability to know when to stop and figure out what this term is or what the client wants or doesn’t want around certain terminology, and then to database it and then include that as part of the translation asset so it stays consistent every time. That takes time versus just sending something through a machine translation, doing a quick spot check and sending it back to the customer.

BS: So it sounds like having that workflow defined and setting those expectations that certain things need to happen at each point of that workflow. Some of it might be automated, some of it does require a person, and that person I guess should probably be identified ahead of time and given a heads-up that, “Hey, something’s going to be coming at you in three weeks. Be ready for it.”

MM: Be ready for it. And also, what are you ready for? So it’s kind of training a reviewer, what are you looking for here? Are we looking for key terms? Are we looking for style preferences? Everyone kind of understanding what it is that a reviewer is going to be looking for, and they might be looking for different things when it comes to technical documentation versus a website, for example. So just having everyone communicate and understand what the intended purpose of the final output is and where everyone fits in the process and defining a schedule around that process definitely helps.

BS: Definitely. I know myself, I’ve seen cases where working for a translation agency, having a client come to me and basically say, “I need this done as soon as possible. What can you do?” And it was a highly technical manual, and we said, “Well, we have an expert in these different languages. This person is available now. This one won’t be available until next month. And this person really only works nights and weekends because they are a professional engineer in their day job.” So turnaround is going to be a little slow, and the client persisted that we just need it as soon as possible. We need to get it out the door in a couple of weeks, and I’m thinking to myself in the back of my head, why are you coming to us now when you need this in a couple of weeks? You shouldn’t just be throwing it over the fence at the last possible minute and expecting it to come back tomorrow. So there was that education. Unfortunately, they decided that they didn’t care. They wanted us to use as many translators as possible and get it done as quick as possible. And we had them sign documents that basically said that we are not liable for the quality of the translation since the client is basically looking to get this done as quickly and cheaply and dirty as possible. It was a nightmare, and I think it took one round of review on the client side for them to basically circle back and say, “Okay, I get what you were saying now.” None of these translations work at all together, because we were literally sending out a chapter to a different translator and there was no style guide because the client hadn’t provided anything. There was no terminology set because the client didn’t provide anything and everything came back different. And they said, “Okay, we get it. We get it. We’ll revise our schedules, get it done the right way. I don’t care how long it takes.”

MM: I’ve run into something very, very similar to what you described, and it was put disclaimers in the documents to where this is going to be poor quality. We’re admitting it right now. This is the only way we’re going to get it back within a week, and we do not recommend publishing. And as soon as the files come back and so on, looks at it and says, “Okay, let’s back up and do it the right way.”

BS: Yes. I guess the biggest takeaway there is plan ahead and plan for quality and not just try to get it done as fast as possible.

MM: And that’s one of the benefits to where we sit at MadTranslations with MadCap Software companies, companies coming into these types of environments. They’re typically at the front end, the planning stages on trying to figure out how all this is going to work. So we have an ability to help them understand what the process looks like and then define it in combination with our tooling and their needs and come up with a workflow that’s going to keep things moving fast, but gives you that human level quality that everyone needs at the end.

BS: Being able to size up exactly what the process needs to look like before you’re in the thick of it definitely helps. And having that opportunity to coach someone through setting up the process for the first time, I’d say that’s definitely priceless because so many mistakes can happen out of the gate between how people are authoring content, what their workflow looks like.

MM: And it’s even more important for companies to have to maintain the content. So it’s one thing to just take a PDF and say, “Hey, I need to translate this file and I’m never going to have to update it again. I just need a quick translation.” It’s another to have a team of authors dispersed around the globe working on the same set of content that then needs to be translated continuously.

So different needs, but like you said, planning, defining the steps and knowing what the requirements of the content are from authoring to time to publication in each language, and how to fit the steps and to meet that as best as possible is best done, like you said, upfront versus when it needs to be published in a week.

BS: Planning, planning, planning. I think that sounds like a good place to leave it. Mike, thank you very much.

MM: Thank you, Bill. Thanks for having me on.

BS: Thank you for listening to the Content Strategy Experts Podcast, brought to you by Scriptorium. For more information, visit scriptorium.com or check the show notes for relevant links.

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