Why Multilingual QA?

Your software has been translated into Spanish, German, Chinese, and Arabic.

But does it still work? If my name is Günther, will the ü be accepted as an input character? What if my name is Zuñiga, Máxima, or 花? Will I get a meaningful error message in Chinese? Do the shortcut keys work as expected in Chinese? In German?

In English, the User field is on the left, the Password field on the right. In Arabic, they should be reversed, and the tab order should be from right to left. Does your software make sense to a user in Arabic? Are the Last Name and First Name fields in the expected order in Arabic? In Chinese? In Hungarian? Does the application work as expected with the Input Method Editor?

Are help files and text in drawings translated correctly? Do links and cross-references still point to the correct places? Do title bars still fit within their window borders? Are labels still aligned and placed correctly with respect to their input fields? Does the software work correctly with local currency? Do the shortcut keys work as expected by a native user?

Your Multilanguage vendor translates text; MULTILINGUAL QA checks and tests all localized functionality, texts and messages in localized context.

You would not develop Software without a full QA of all functionality before releasing software. However, just because the English software works is no guarantee that the German, Spanish, Chinese, or Arabic software will also work. To achieve the level of quality of the English software, localized software must also be tested. It is especially important to perform quality assurance on those areas that are affected by localization, including the entire user interface; user input; data display; window decorations; date, time, currency, and calendar display; on-line help, error messages, interface resources, command-key sequences; documentation and on-line help texts; links and cross-references.

Your QA department is separate from your programming department because you want third-party verification of the programming functionality by a different set of eyes in an independent environment. MULTILINGUAL QA offers you third-party verification of the functionality, linguistics, and cosmetics of your localized software independent of your localization vendor.

To achieve English-language quality in localized software, contact us.