This in-depth website localization testing guide will show you how to test your localized website to avoid linguistic contextual translation errors and launch a website with bad UI designs. 

Is it possible to test all website localized elements? Here, we’ll show you how to create a website testing checklist to ensure every localized website aspect is tested accurately in this article.

But first, have you done with your website localization process? If Yes, then continue to know how to do website localization testing step-by-step. If No, check out this website localization best practices for your successful localization.

In this article, you will learn:

• Definition of website localization testing
• Benefits of website localization testing
• Website Localization testing checklist (with table)
• Steps on how to perform a successful website localization testing
• Solutions if you want to outsource your testing

What is Website Localization Testing?

When you began the website localization process, what steps did you put in place to ensure your localized website adapts to your target foreign audience? The success of any multilingual website is largely determined by how website translation and localization conform to the unique cultural nuances of the people within the target international market.

Website localization testing is a process of ensuring a localized website adapts to a specific region’s cultural nuances, laws, and functionality before launching it. How your website users interact with the website depends on their first experience. At this testing stage, you ensure foreign website visitors experience no website functionality glitches and translation errors.

As you perform website localization testing, the most important element is ensuring the site is culturally relevant. Most people just translate their website content into different languages and forget to localize. This often leads to cross-cultural miscommunication.

Site localization entails translating web content, changing website visual aesthetics, streamlining the way user inputs are accepted, and changing communication style. These are some of the key elements you should test after website internationalization and localization.

Benefits of Website Localization Testing

Tailoring a website to suit unique characteristics in a foreign market comes with great opportunities. Testing before publishing a localized website offers a chance to fix test cases that don’t align with the user’s cultural norms, regional laws and regulations, and language and dialects.

Here are other benefits.a)  To avoid translation errors – No matter how experienced a translation and localization team is, there’ll be a translation error. Testing your website after localization highlights all translation errors, giving room to fix them.

b)  PR cost avoidance – Publishing a website with some words construed as vulgar or demeaning to the user is embarrassing and damaging to the brand’s image. It’s costly to establish a successful public relation counter-offensive. Testing helps avoid such unprecedented costs.

c)   Ensure smooth website functionality – When conducting a localized website functionality test, page elements and key user task buttons are checked to ensure every element gives the right results.

Website Localization Testing Checklist

For you to have a flawless localized website, it’s important to have a testing checklist. The idea of a checklist is to ensure your website testers have all the necessary website documents, files, formats, graphics, and translation language while executing localization testing.

This will ensure every website’s aspect meets users’ linguistic needs, visual representations, smooth user interface interaction, and social context.

Localization testing elements that should never miss in your checklist are:

1. The country or regions you intend to localize,
   
2. The region’s regulations and laws,
   
3. Tools and techniques to use when testing,
   
4. The website’s voice tone and language styles, and
   
5. Website functionality.

Practical Guide on How to Create a Localization Testing Checklist

Step 1: Create a test case checklist for the website’s user interface and design

Localized website UI creates the website’s first impression, and you should pay more attention to it.

Step 2: Create a website functional and usability test checklist

Functional test checklist should aim at testing the website features and functional specifications of website products.

Step 3: Create a website compatibility test checklist 

Website users use all types of operating systems to access your website’s content. When creating a checklist for testers to test your localized compatibility checklist, aim at using different operating systems.

Factors to Consider When Creating Localization Checklist

To come up with a localization testing checklist that matches your website’s internationalization objectives, you should take into account:

1) Consider your website style guide

You need a website style guide to guide the testers when confirming whether your localized website is matching with the desired website design style. In this style guide, include the language style and tone that will sound authentic and original to the target audience.

2) Factor the language and culture of the intended user

The main aim of localization is to make your foreign customers interact with your website as though it’s in their locality. Having the language and culture in the testing checklist will ensure every word and visual is adapted to the target website audience.

3) Take into account the target audience and region

Every region or country in this world is governed by laws and regulations. Let your website localization testers where your foreign audiences are residing by including the nationality of your website users and where they live. It’ll also help them take into account festivities and holidays in that region.

4) Consider possible website user navigation pathways

Have you seen some websites with a button to your right for alternating the website’s different languages? Others like KFC have their website text in French and the payment in Euros. Let the testers know how the users will be navigating the website’s languages.

How to Perform Website Localization Testing   

Website localization testing is important because it ensures your multilingual website is free of translation errors. Again, it’ll ensure website users enjoy smooth website navigation and the layout is not only pleasing but also inviting.

Not everyone or company can do site localization – if you aren’t an expert in website testing, partner with a company like Wordspath, and you won’t regret it.

Here is how to localize a website.

Step 1: Create a localization test plan

Before you start the website localization testing process, it’s good to draft a localization test plan. To draft a testing plan that solves all your localized website bugs and errors, we recommend you make a list of all your website’s localized elements.

Here’s an example of a localization test plan checklist.

Key website elements such as website friendliness, visual designs, information accessibility, and interaction should be on the checklist. Also, include target regions or countries, target audience language, and testing objective.

Remember the aim of this step is to create a list of reference points your localization testers will use to gauge the website. This should be influenced by your website niche and its goals.

Step 2: Prepare website testing environment

Website localization testing cannot be done on a live website. You need a prototype website instead of your live website when testing the website. Having a test environment will give testers room for experimenting and improvising your website.

Being a technical process, get yourself website translation and localization experts to prepare a website localization test environment.  When setting the test environment, ensure the QA test environment mimics the real user conditions as closely as possible.

To prepare the website testing environment, you’ll need;

a) Test data,

b) Operating system (real user operating systems e.g. smartphone and computer),

c) Testing server,

d) Network configuration,

e) The localized website and

f) An interface to come between the live website and the prototype website

Step 3: Test your website functionality

The aim of the website functionality test is to identify the localized website’s malfunctioning and misdirected page elements, low-speed pages, and forms functionality. Start by listing your website’s functions. This refers to website features that enable users to complete tasks.

Testing website functionality involves running tests on the parameters set out in the website functionality checklist such as HTML/CSS, cross-browser compatibility, mobile compatibility, and page load speed.

Here are test cases to include in a functionality checklist.

a) Feature accessibility

b) Feature learnability

c) Function memorability

d) Feature consistency, and

e) User experience

Step 4: Test your localized website layout design

After knowing your website’s functionality bugs, test the localized website layout. Whereas there are few website elements that change during website localization, the website layout is ideally almost the same except where the content has to read from right to left.

Testing a localized website layout design involves:

a) Testing the website’s localized interface elements

b) Checking whether the localized layout is consistent with the previous version

c) Testing space alignment, overlap problems, and truncation issues

How the fonts should appear to the target audience should also be tested.

Step 5: Test the website’s localized content

It’s at this stage where all grammatical, linguistic, translated terminologies, punctuation, and listings should be tested against the target audience’s linguistic standards and cultural understandings. Translation accuracy is an important aspect the tester should pay attention to.

The majority of the international companies that have had issues with their localized websites are due to translation errors. Colors and signs are other website content test cases since they carry different connotations based on cultural and regional understanding.

Industry-specific terminologies carry more weight than other words, and so should be tested and retested for translation accuracy.

Step 6: Validation of testing results

Verifying testers’ results is all that determines the test cases you’ll act upon. Go through all the test cases in each step, validate the results, then fix all the website localization bugs. The testers’ final report, test case results, and feedback provide critical information on the suitability and usability of a website. 

Use all the reference testers’ notes to ensure your localized website looks suitable to the target audience in all different languages.

Best Agency for Website Localization Testing Outsourcing

To expand your reach to foreign countries through content, you require website localization services that understands the foreign country’s language and the people’s culture.

We understand why website localization and testing are important. As your one-stop service provider, Wordspath does website translation and localization for those looking to internationalize your website and acquire more customers with many benefits:

1. Wordspath has the technical knowledge on how to plan and structure a localized website to adapt to the language and cultural dictates of the audience you plan to reach out to.

2. Through conducting website functional and linguistic testing, Wordspath will ensure consistency in your website language and UI.

3. Wordspath has the professionals to maintain your website translation, localization, and testing needs at all times. This includes customer support staff to respond to your challenges 24/7.

Now that you’re almost to venture into different language-speaking markets or regions, we are ready to stand by you and ensure every aspect is successful.

All you need is to order website localization services from Wordspath and website localization testing will be included in the package.