Courseware Table of Contents
Courseware Sample

GUIDELINES FOR TESTING INT’L AND LOCALIZED SOFTWARE

A Few Basic Rules for Testers of English Int’l Software and Localized Versions

It is a well known fact that the earlier you can discover a bug in a product development process, the less expensive it is to fix it. Depending on the level of Int’l support built into the base code, the testing that needs to be done will vary.

There are two basic testing requirements when making sure a product can be sold in all the countries for which it was developed:

1. Testing the internationalization of the base product
2. Testing the localized versions of an internationalized product.
    

When a product is fully internationalized, the Int’l US version supports all of the features required in the localized versions. For instance, even though the user interface is still in English, an Int’l product supports the correct character sets required by the localized versions. In other words, you don’t need to wait for an early localized version to be available to test basic functionality such as: character sets, sorting, case conversion, find/replace, etc.

Get familiar with the Int’l requirements at the product concept phase

Localization does not start when the text strings are ready to be shipped to the translation agency. It starts when a company has to decide the features of a new product or the features of a new version of an existing product. The Int’l support of each feature should be decided at this stage in order to avoid a major product re-architecture at the end of the development process when any change becomes much more expensive.

Include an Int’l section in the test plan

Ideally, all Int’l product requirements will be listed in the product’s specifications. The test plan should spec out how the test suites will be localized to exercise the base code’s Int’l support.

Establish bug report procedures for Int’l and Localization bugs

Localization testers should be able to enter anomaly reports into the base US bug database. Although this seems quite obvious, there are many companies that would consider a localization tester’s waste of time to discover problems in the base product. Other companies are more proactive and facilitate a localization testing task by setting up a special Int’l section of their base bug database. Information about anomalies related to earlier localized versions can be very useful when defining a localized test plan.   (end of chapter’s sample)