Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Difference between Localization & Globalization Testing

Difference between Localization & Globalization Testing

Globalization Testing Localization Testing
Globalization is the process of designing and developing applications that function for multiple cultures. Localization is the process of customizing your application for a given culture and locale.
Globalization addresses the business issues associated with taking a product global. In the globalization of high-tech products this involves integrating localization throughout a company, after proper internationalization and product design, as well as marketing, sales and support in the world market.

Globalization is a term used in many different ways. For example there is a process of creating local or localized versions of web sites, which we will refer to as “web site globalization. web site globalization refers to enabling a web site to deal with non english speaking visitors i.e. internationalizing the site’s back-end software, designing a multi-lingual architecture and localizing the site’s static or dynamic content.

"G11n" is often used as an abbreviation for globalization. "G11n" means that there are 11 characters between G and n in Globalization.
Localization involves taking a product and making it linguistically and culturally appropriate to the target locale (country/region and language) where it will be used and sold.

A well-localized product enables users to interact with a software application in their native language. They should be able to read all interface components such as error messages or screen tips in their native language and enter information with all accented characters using the local keyboard layout.

"L10n" is often used as an abbreviation for localization.
The goal of globalization testing is to detect potential problems in application design that could inhibit globalization. It makes sure that the code can handle all international support without breaking functionality that would cause either data loss or display problems.

Globalization testing checks proper functionality of the product with any of the culture/locale settings using every type of international input possible.
Localization translates the product UI and occasionally changes some initial settings to make it suitable for another region. Localization testing checks the quality of a product's localization for a particular target culture/locale. This test is based on the results of globalization testing, which verifies the functional support for that particular culture/locale.

Localization testing can be executed only on the localized version of a product.


Source:
Globalization Testing.
Localization Testing.
ASP.NET Globalization and Localization.
A Practical Guide to Localization by Bert Esselink.
Software Testing by Wikipedians.
Software Testing: Principles and Practice by Srinivasan Desikan, Gopalaswamy Ramesh.