UWashingtonX: Introduction to Internationalization and Localization

Are you a developer who wants to understand how their software can get released internationally, without their source code having to be altered? Or are you a PM responsible for launching a website across different markets? Or someone who is just curious to understand how digital products can be launched worldwide and in various languages? Then this is the course for you!

In this introduction to internationalization and localization you will learn

• Why it makes sense to release an app or a site outside of its original market in the first place
• What markets to cover first, for example those that have specific legal requirements around availability of a particular language
• The basic concepts and key terms of the industry: for example, how using Unicode and considering different time formats are both part of internationalization, how adapting the user interface of a software application is part of localization and what resource files have to do with localizability
• The different types of international releases and their specific challenges
• The different localization methods
• The history of the industry and important trends
• Roles and responsibilities
• Localization sourcing models, including outsourcing to so-called language service providers
• How to work successfully in the very international localization industry