As the number of electronic products and resources increases, there is a growing demand for translators who are able to translate media such as software applications, multimedia products, Web pages, and even on-line chat sessions. Software localization, which is the adaptation of a software package to a target language and culture, is one of the fastest-growing translation markets. Although translation is an important component of software localization, it is not the only one; other tasks involved in the localization process include engineering, testing, and project management. With regard to the translation component of software localization, translators must translate or adapt the user interface (e.g., menus, dialogue boxes, icons, buttons), help files, error messages, and accompanying documentation (e.g., user manuals). Although software localization involves many of the same considerations as do other types of translation (e.g., appropriate representation of date, time, and currency formats), it also involves some additional considerations.
One additional issue that translators must deal with is the physical constraints of the screen space. In some development environments, the width of a menu or a button can be adjusted (e.g., to accommodate the longer French term "Sauvegarder" as a translation of the shorter English term "Save"), but in other cases, the width is fixed and the translator must choose a term or a transparent abbreviation that fits within the allocated space.
Similarly, a translator may need to adjust the "hot keys" or "shortcut keys" because these often have mnemonic significance. For example, if an English-language program uses the shortcut "Ctrl-p" to enable users to "print" a document, a translator localizing this product into French might consider changing the shortcut to "Ctrl-i" to create a similar mnemonic reference for the French equivalent "imprimer." Of course, such decisions may have knock-on effects. For instance, it is possible that this shortcut has already been assigned to another function (e.g., "italique"), or technical alterations may need to be made to the underlying code in order to effect such a change.
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