Creating multilingual e-Learning courses allows you to target global audiences. e-Learning is a growing business and for a reason, it’s an efficient way to train, it saves money, and can be accessed worldwide, among other benefits. In order to make the most of your courses, having them localized and translated to multiple languages is a must. We’ll share all you need to know about e-Learning localization.
The global e-Learning market surpassed $315 Billion in 2021 and is expected to grow 20% more by 2028. The corporate sector is the one fueling this growth. Companies are embracing a culture of learning anytime, anywhere, and on any device. Translating and localizing your e-Learning classes allows students, employees, and learners from all over the world to fully understand and better retain your content.
What is the importance of multilingual e-Learning?
Everybody understands English, you’ll say… But, do they? Only 20% of the global population that is online speaks English. Only in the US, 67.3 million residents speak other than English at home and there are 250,000 to 500,000 people who use American Sign Language. Localization helps expand the audiences you can target, assures content is culturally relevant, and grants better accessibility.
Language and cultural factors have a significant impact on a person’s ability to learn. Research shows that people learn quicker in their native language. Educational content must meet high standards in order to be engaging, highly substantive, and of interest to the recipient. Localizing your training means you will have a quality product for a global audience.
What does e-Learning localization include?
Localization is the adaptation of a product’s linguistic, cultural, and technical elements to match the standard of a given country or region. This applies to everything: language; icons and symbols; photos; graphics; fonts; dates, times, and measurements; color schemes; terminology, acronyms and abbreviations, software applications screenshots; currencies; among others. Taking all of these elements into account guarantees that the audience is much more likely to understand the content.
So, what should you consider when developing multilingual e-Learning courses?
The e-Learning localization process begins at the very beginning, whether acknowledge or not. Maybe your target audience, in the beginning, is English speaking. But if you might be interested in going global later down the road, a localization mindset can be helpful. You will be able to create the same quality product and remove potential barriers. Here are a few tips to take localization into account from the start.
Can the content be localized?
If you are working with very specific topics, some materials might need to be rewritten, for example, if there are differences in legislation.
Do you have images or videos?
If there are images or videos of people, portraying people for the target region is a good idea.
Do images have embedded text?
Ideally, every single line of text on an image should be translated during the localization process. But this can be hard and costly, choosing images without text and adding it, later on, is a better option when creating a course with localization in mind.
What languages do you want to target?
Characters in different languages can take up more or less space, for example, the same text in Spanish or German will be longer than in English. And if you are translating into something like Japanese, the reading direction might change. If you consider this from the beginning, you can design slides with a multilingual mindset, and grant more adaptability to your course.
These are just some things you might want to have in mind in order to create multilingual e-Learning courses. Having a localization services provider during this is key. This means you can rely on a company that has the experience and expertise to execute the project and guarantee quality in your final product.
How does Win & Winnow approach e-Learning localization?
Challenge when localizing e-learning courses
A global e-Learning development company approached us to assess their existing localization workflows. They detected that while they were experts at developing and delivering top-notch e-Learning courses in the source language. When it came to other markets, they were not being able to deliver the same overall quality. One of their main concerns included:
- constantly missing client deadlines due to multiple rounds of feedback that also resulted in high costs;
- not being able to provide clear timelines;
- not being able to set of expectations;
- literal translations;
- lack of cultural insight.
Creating e-Learning content with a localization mindset
In order to solve the issues they were encountering, tackling localization from the start was the answer. We had our Desktop Publishing (DTP) team work side by side with their developers so that translation processes and technologies were properly integrated. In order to optimize timelines, we defined clear feedback rounds.
Ww worked on a complete debrief of the course so that translations are not literal, but rather can convey the original message and be properly adapted to each market. Leverage the use of translation and quality assurance technologies to optimize timelines and costs. And provided a Project Manager as the main point of contact to follow the progress of the multilingual projects and address any challenges in a timely manner with the client.
Take your multilingual e-Learning courses global
New and updated localization processes have been developed, documented, and agreed upon with the client. Surveys showed an increasing satisfaction of their clients with the localization process. The projects met timelines and expectations, and all with minimum feedback on each round. As translations are better aligned with expectations and are culturally sensitive from the beginning.
The e-Learning market is growing, start thinking globally from the beginning and create multilingual courses. At Win & Winnow we translate and localize e-Learning, contact us to know more!
