BACKGROUND
TWi is a global provider of content consulting, information development, instructional design, and translation and localization services, working with some of the largest companies in the world. We focus on building value-based relationships where we take a flexible, quality-driven approach that makes it easy for clients to work with us and deliver real business impact. See how we excel in localizing eLearning simulations, ensuring quality and scalability for global training.
INTRODUCTION
Our client is one of the largest online retail companies in the world and has built its global brand on exceptional and innovative customer service. This philosophy underpinned their decision to design and develop a series of highly interactive eLearning simulators as part of an enterprise training programme for onboarding new customer service agents.
The simulations for the simulator tutorials are built in Articulate Rise and Storyline. They are designed to provide agents with a guided learning experience in a simulated customer environment that allows them to learn at their own pace as they train to serve multilingual customers around the globe.
THE CHALLENGE
To devise an efficient, scalable method for localizing eLearning content in Articulate Rise and Storyline.
Articulate Storyline has become a leader in interactive online learning for its simplicity of use and adaptability. The tool offers a speedy and robust solution for creating and publishing effective eLearning content. Like any tool, however, Articulate Storyline has its limitations, especially when it comes to generating localization-ready content at scale. This requires specialist input.
Our client’s objective was to find the most efficient way to localize, engineer, and linguistically test the tutorials. Given the complexity of the design, they needed an innovative partner with cross-disciplinary expertise in designing, developing, and localizing eLearning content. Having worked with TWi on information development projects since 2019, the client was aware of our cross-functional expertise in Articulate Storyline and approached us in December 2022 to submit a proposal for a high-visibility, multi-year eLearning programme.
Our initial analysis of the source content revealed that the functionality of the localized courses was not performing as expected, despite following Articulate’s standard translation procedure. On closer examination, TWi’s cross-functional team quickly identified a serious code-level issue that was breaking the functionality of the localized courses. After consulting with the Articulate community and other experts in the field, they determined that the issue was a recurring one without a standard solution. The challenge, therefore, was to devise and test a tailor-made process that could be applied at scale and across all languages, while also delivering project efficiencies.
THE ACTION
TWi team implements and tests a tailor-made multilingual solution.
Based on their experience with localizing other Articulate projects, TWi’s cross-disciplinary team knew that:
- Variable names are not translated.
- Variable default values are translated.
- Trigger conditions are not translated.
From a globalization perspective, the team also knew that the best way forward was to separate code from content in line with software development best practices. TWi’s solution was to create string variables to hold any raw text values, thus ensuring that the simulator content was not only localization-ready but also scalable since the technical fix would be implemented in the Storyline master directly.
THE IMPACT
In creating a cost-effective process that sets the benchmark for scaling up in devising and testing a process for localizing, engineering, and linguistically testing the eLearning simulators, TWi not only fulfilled the client’s initial proposal brief but also set the benchmark for a scalable localization process capable of driving real project efficiencies. It also included the development of a custom quality dashboard to track language quality scores over time.
The depth and breadth of TWi’s proposal were sufficient to convince the client of the value of choosing TWi over their existing pool of nine global translation vendors (MLVs). Over the first 12-months of the programme, TWi successfully localized seven courses.
KEY FIGURES
Languages:
- Arabic
- Dutch
- French
- French (Canada)
- German
- Italian
- Japanese
- Portuguese (Brazil)
- Spanish (International)
- Spanish (Mexican)
- Spanish (US)
- Polish
- Turkish
Volumes:
- 245,000 words localized per language.
- 3.1 million words localized in total.
Services:
- Machine-translation post-editing (MTPE)
- Language quality assessment (LQA)
- Linguistic engineering
- Linguistic testing (in-context review)
Strong quality scores of the simulations:
- Average language quality score of 98%
Given the success of the 2023 programme, and their first-hand experience of the benefits of working with a multi-disciplinary team, the client recently announced that TWi will have responsibility for an expanded programme in 2024. Over the coming year, the TWi team will not only be responsible for localizing a further 10 eLearning courses in 15 languages but will also play an active role in designing and developing the source eLearning courses also.
Click HERE to learn more about how we can help your business develop effective multi-lingual simulations.
