Done Right, E-Learning Localization Can Save Millions

The recession last year (wait, is it over yet?) breezed over a few product and service sectors, and was even downright friendly to some. E-learning was one of those. With the recession, many companies began relying more on freelancers and contractors to fulfill work that was previously being done in-house, and incorporating flexible working practices into their HR policies, which expanded the need for virtual training.

On top of that, companies looking to cut costs turned abroad for cheaper workforces, who in turn need to be trained in their foreign tongue. (An adult educated to university level in a foreign language has only a quarter of the vocabulary compared to a native speaker.) Knowledge and training for foreign language workers needs to be customized for their language and often their culture, too.

When localized correctly, e-learning can be a highly efficient, cost-effective learning medium. It helps with brand and company consistency as it delivers a uniform training solution across both languages and cultures. But it's not as easy as it sounds. Localizing e-learning solutions is just as tricky as software localization, with all the potential traps of marketing translation.

Here's an example:

A Canadian-based company that sells driver e-learning packages was rapidly expanding into 20 countries in just two years. The company realized too late that the product had some serious cultural flaws, the Wall Street Journal reported:

The dialogue in the lessons had been poorly-translated and the driving instruction failed to address geographic nuances. For example, AlertDriving teaches that the center lane is the safest on a multi-lane highway, but that is untrue in Dubai, where the center lane is used exclusively for passing.

The cost of re-doing what was already in the market was about $1 million, and it took 18 months to completely fix the localization issues. 

How do you prevent a disaster like this from happening? Do it right the first time. You can never be too careful with localization. Choose a translation partner you trust, and educate yourself on the process and some tips from experts, such as avoiding string concatenation in your original product and making font properties customizable.

You can also minimize costs by following best practice authoring processes, limiting the use of video, and making sure the translation firm you select makes good use of translation technology such as terminology management and translation memory software.

Because it's all worth it in the long run! The future for e-learning looks great; the industry is projected to reach $107.3 billion in value by 2015, according to a recent report. Primary growth drivers behind its success are cited as being cost reductions, flexibility and the needs of dispersed, global workforces — all factors that spun out of the recession but are not likely to go away anytime soon.

Image attribution: woody1778a

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