Application Cosmetic testing

Translation has an enormous impact on the cosmetic aspect of an application. No amount of world-readiness or globalization can remedy the fact that German strings will be longer than their English counterparts; therefore, almost any localization project will require some level of cosmetic testing. Application Cosmetic testing ensures that the layout, appearance, size, and alignment of all on-screen text as well as the order of fields and tabbing still makes sense post-translation.

Typical problems in translated software include truncated text that doesn’t fit into its dialog box, menu, or title bar; text that takes up two lines where only one was provided; extended or double-byte characters that appear as empty squares; fields reversed or in the wrong order in right-to-left languages (such as Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, and Hebrew); insufficient space above and below text for accents (a potential problem in almost all languages other than English). Cosmetic QA and testing are essential in assuring that the software still looks correct after translation.