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How to write string descriptions to improve your product’s localised UX
Provide your translators with the context to find the best words in each language.
A few years (*cough 15 years shhh cough*) ago, one of my main freelance gigs was translation with a focus on product copy. Clients would send over a spreadsheet with strings, and I would… spend hours trying to find those strings in their apps to get enough context to find the right words.
So imagine my delight when one day, I received a spreadsheet not just with strings, but with screenshots and notes about the purpose of each string. It didn’t only save me hours, but it gave me much more confidence that my English translations were appropriate.
Context is key in ensuring we’re not just translating the individual words, but rather the UX as a whole. Without context, all that hard work your whole product team puts into creating a superb product is flushed down the toilet for any users who don’t speak English. To say that’s a waste is an understatement!
Fast forward to now, and one of my responsibilities as a content designer is working with translators to localise our product copy. And since that delightful spreadsheet, there’s a lot more info out there on providing string descriptions to give context. Indeed, most string and translation management systems have…
