Currently, edX has no engineering team or product owner around the internationalization (i18n) and localization (l10n) of the edX platform, edx.org website, and associate products (Drupal, insights, etc). This document is a first pass at the outstanding questions around i18n and l10n we have, primarily from a product perspective, that a full or part time globalization team would need to answer to help us become secure and stable in our translations support. These questions, and their eventual answers, will form the backbone of our globalization strategy.
Nothing about how we do translations of anything (even the platform) is at all easy. Even if we are handed a set of translated strings, if they are for a language we don't support yet, there is significant effort to ramp, execute and maintain a new language. If we are going to move toward deeper language support (e.g. translate the Web site and documentation), and/or more languages (for key markets or partners), and/or content translations (even if we act only as a broker), then we need a business plan for approaching the Global market, we need to shore up what we have (e.g. our Hindi platform translation percentage is below 50% -- that's a language we already "support"), and we'll need more technical and process infrastructure to make significant progress.
Before we move forward with additional support for languages - whether that is releasing new languages on edx.org or building new features that allow further localization - we need to define what "supporting" a language is, what our and our partner's commitments to translation are, and what are target markets are. We need to figure out a long-term strategy plan that will enable sustainable, productive support of a small number of language groups. In addition to the commitment of a full or part time product owner in this area, we will need a dedicated engineering resource as well as input from our marketing and business teams to help us identify target markets and ensure we have a budget that will help us meet our globalization needs.
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Committing to internationalization will require money, and it will slow velocity. It will take time to do correctly. This is borne out through research into what other companies have done, and internal knowledge from people within edX who have been part of globalization initiatives at other companies.
Commercialization Impact (Mobile)
Poor localization of mobile applications (under commitment, mis-translations, lack of context review) will lead to low ratings on the app store which may be difficult to bounce back from.
UX Impact
UX velocity will be slowed by numerous UX impact that globalization has. For example, we need to make sure all pages render correctly both in LTR (left-to-right) and RTL (right-to-left) languages, such as Arabic. Further, we need to make sure testing is robust enough to account for languages, such as German, with traditionally longer strings, and character sets, such as Mandarin, that are taller and wider than Latin characters.
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