Why Translation and Localization Matter

SAP is a global company and because our products are offered to customers all around the world, the user assistance and user interfaces are translated and localized in up to 50 languages. To ensure a good user experience in all languages, make sure to keep these guidelines in mind:

• Consistency: Be consistent both within your product as well as across the suite. This includes style, tone, word choice, etc.
• Terminology: Use consistent terminology with SAPTerm as source.
• Comprehensibility: Keep your language clear and easy to understand, also for people without first-language proficiency in English.
• Style and tone of voice: Create your content with the SAP Brand voice in mind. Remember that our brand personality is the “approachable expert”.
• People-centric approach: Tailor your content to the needs of your target group and develop a conversational style and tone of voice that fits both your product area and your audience.
• Linguistic correctness: This may sound like a no-brainer, but linguistic correctness is the non-negotiable prerequisite for good user experience, customer satisfaction, and a basis for efficient translation. Make sure to review your content for language, grammar, and punctuation on top of the aspects mentioned above.

The Role of UADs and Translators

As a User Assistance Developer (UAD), you’re acting as the first customer of the software. Therefore, it’s important that you are part of the development process and all its phases.

It’s equally important that your translation colleagues are part of the process, too. Translators can work with you on terminology from the start to help create a consistent experience that works across languages and cultures. They also review and test your product and can report technical issues to the product team.

Terminology

Everything starts with consistent terminology. In addition to using standard terms and formulations as listed in the product standard requirement UXC-015, you define your product terminology with stakeholders like product managers and translators.

• Create your terms in SAPTerm and add as much information as possible. Provide at least a suitable definition. This will help other colleagues and especially translators to use the right terms, be consistent and avoid misunderstandings.
• Always use official product names from SAP Brand Naming Center and listed abbreviations only.
• In general, avoid synonyms and abbreviations unless they’re commonly used.
• While too much text on a UI can look crammed, abbreviations can be ambiguous. Maintain a reasonable number of words on the screen but always use the correct terminology.
• Make use of research tools like the SAP Language Search tool to stay consistent.

Think Global

Some aspects of translation and terminology have a deeper cultural background than others and can be perceived differently in some cultures. Pay special attention to topics like geographic names and inclusive language and double-check them when in doubt.

Geographic names and geopolitical dimensions

Geographic names (countries, regions, cities, and so on) often occur on our UIs. They’re proper names and don’t always have translated equivalents. Even the labels introducing geographic names have to be chosen carefully.

Example

We use the label “Country/Region” instead of “Country”. This term makes it more neutral.

For more information on country/region-specific guidance, refer to the product standard requirement Country and Region Handling (GLOB-192) and country/region-specific guidance.

Technical Translatability

Together with your development team, check the requirements to ensure your UI text and embedded help are technically translatable. Once these requirements are in place, you can focus more on the content and overall user experience.

• Go through the developer checklist to understand the basics of technical translation aspects.
• Implement the requirements for product translatability as described in the product standard requirement GLOB-187.

Product translatability requirements

Externalize strings

We want to create a consistent user experience in every localized version of the product, so make sure your UI text isn’t hard-coded and all text can be technically translated. This includes punctuation and special characters.

Leave space for translation

Most follow-on languages require more characters than English. Keep in mind that translated text will most likely be longer than your original when you design your content. This is especially important when a character limitation is in place.

Remove unnecessary text

In addition to being concise with your wording, remove test and dummy text from your product to reduce translation costs and time.

Use U.S. English

As part of a consistent experience, always use U.S. English as your source language as well as your fallback language. This will also ensure that translation tools can work properly.

Avoid abbreviations

Abbreviations can be ambiguous and misunderstood by users or incorrectly translated, if no or insufficient context is provided. Always use full terms unless an abbreviation is more common and used as standard in the industry.

Stay culturally neutral

Avoid idioms and other culturally specific elements as there might be no exact equivalent in the target language.

Speaking of context: Add context information

While you want to stay concise with your target group and only provide content that is needed for a specific task or process, you should provide as much context as possible to your translation colleagues. The more additional information they have, the easier it is for them to evaluate correct translation and localization.

Example:

Specify the text type, if your developers haven’t done that, and add a meaningful comment. In the example of the word “Filter”, the translator has to know whether this is a verb or a noun. Explaining that this is a button label and what it does helps to set the context.

Incorporate variables with care

Variables are usually used for untranslatable items like object IDs, technical names or product names, if a product name shouldn’t be translated.

Apart from the technical implementation, think about the placement of variables in your text. Replace the variable in your text with a concrete example to see if the sentence structure works in English and would potentially work in other languages. Avoid concatenating or using multiple variables and add context information for your translators.

Other Supporting Tools and Resources

On top of the resources we’ve already looked at, you can find an overview of standards and guidelines for UA on SAP Help Portal, including a section on translation.

There are a few tools specifically designed to help you and your developers to check your UI text on screen. Even if there’s no length restriction for your UI text, you might need to leave more space in certain areas.

• UI text space calculator: An app that calculates the longest possible translation based on your English source text, which works for all 50 target languages.
• Pseudotranslation: Mimicks target languages on the UI in the development phase and identifies problematic strings before translation starts.

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