Thursday, March 8, 2001
Developer Language Challenges
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 08:33 PM
I recently did a project for Microsoft that involved looking at over a hundred different Pocket PC applications, and the product descriptions written for them, I came to a painful conclusion: the vast majority of products out there either don't have a description of what they actually do, or the description is a badly mangled attempt at a translation to English (or sometimes just weak writing in general).
It's bad enough when it's on your web site or in your Handango description, but even worse when it's in your software! It degrades the image of your software and makes your development efforts look amateurish - which isn't fair to your efforts. You put effort into the graphics and coding of the software, and to be sabotaged by poor grammar is unacceptable.
The majority of the problems I saw were from developers outside North America - which isn't surprising considering the often subtle complexities of the English language. When English isn't your first language, writing appropriate descriptions or translating your language content into English can't be easy. I'd like to suggest a better way... Rather than relying on your in-house people to translate content to English, why not use a native speaker of the language? I'm not talking about hiring a professional editor. I'm talking about finding one of your customers with reasonable writing skills, offer them free software in exchange for their help, and simply pass all translated text past them for editing into a more standard North American style of English.
You'll end up with more natural-sounding product descriptions, and your software will be perceived to be higher-quality because of it.
The recent "All your base are belong to us" fad is a reminder of how badly-translated English undermines what you're trying to do - you want your product to be remembered for being a great piece of software, not for having horrible grammar.
And for those developers out there who speak English natively, I'd encourage you to step away from only listing features and come up with a benefit-based description of your product. If I'm looking at your software at Handango, what's the first bit of text you want me to see? A list of recent bug fixes, or a description of what the software does and how it will benefit me? Take a guess. :-)
I should add a footnote here: I don't pretend to be the greatest writer that has ever lived. These pages are riddled with spelling and grammar errors, but after doing this project I saw something that was becoming the norm in the Pocket PC development community. I felt it was worth addressing, and I hope that as a developer you agree that beyond the code and graphics of your app, the way you market it and present it to people is critical.
It's bad enough when it's on your web site or in your Handango description, but even worse when it's in your software! It degrades the image of your software and makes your development efforts look amateurish - which isn't fair to your efforts. You put effort into the graphics and coding of the software, and to be sabotaged by poor grammar is unacceptable.
The majority of the problems I saw were from developers outside North America - which isn't surprising considering the often subtle complexities of the English language. When English isn't your first language, writing appropriate descriptions or translating your language content into English can't be easy. I'd like to suggest a better way... Rather than relying on your in-house people to translate content to English, why not use a native speaker of the language? I'm not talking about hiring a professional editor. I'm talking about finding one of your customers with reasonable writing skills, offer them free software in exchange for their help, and simply pass all translated text past them for editing into a more standard North American style of English.
You'll end up with more natural-sounding product descriptions, and your software will be perceived to be higher-quality because of it.
The recent "All your base are belong to us" fad is a reminder of how badly-translated English undermines what you're trying to do - you want your product to be remembered for being a great piece of software, not for having horrible grammar.
And for those developers out there who speak English natively, I'd encourage you to step away from only listing features and come up with a benefit-based description of your product. If I'm looking at your software at Handango, what's the first bit of text you want me to see? A list of recent bug fixes, or a description of what the software does and how it will benefit me? Take a guess. :-)
I should add a footnote here: I don't pretend to be the greatest writer that has ever lived. These pages are riddled with spelling and grammar errors, but after doing this project I saw something that was becoming the norm in the Pocket PC development community. I felt it was worth addressing, and I hope that as a developer you agree that beyond the code and graphics of your app, the way you market it and present it to people is critical.
