eLearning Localization: The Best Practices

eLearning localization revolves around adapting your eLearning program to ensure it meets a specific target audience's linguistic and cultural expectation. Instead of merely translating the content of your eLearning solutions from the original (source) language to a new (target) language, what you're doing by localizing the content is ensuring that the cultural references you used within the content area are suitable to new markets. 

In short? An eLearning localization project is an investment in the assurance that your training program will be received within the right context by people that speak different languages and those from other cultures.

In this post, we explore the importance of eLearning localization and some of the best practices that can help you ensure you get it right from the start!

The Importance of Localizing Your eLearning Content

The modern world is home to global citizens that are multilingual and multicultural. Although English might be a widely recognized international language, it's not the most spoken language in the global market, and millions of people worldwide are not proficient in English. For these non-English speakers, the best way to consume information and learn new materials is through instruction in their own language.

Businesses also have much more diverse teams of remote employees worldwide. All these employees need to be trained and offered opportunities to update and enhance their knowledge through internal training. And it is within this context that eLearning plays an invaluable role. 

Whether it's aimed at refreshing knowledge or teaching teams new methodologies and operational procedures, an online training program can greatly enhance internal skills and boost productivity within the organization.

Cultural factors play an essential role in learning methods, as do linguistic factors. Thus, when companies offer their training to their team members in their native language, employees find the content much easier to comprehend and learn since it includes concepts and preferences that are suitable to each employee's local preferences.

What Best Practices Should You Follow When Localizing eLearning Programs?

With the aim of ensuring your eLearning program is suitable to any audience, regardless of their cultures and backgrounds, here are some tips to keep in mind when rolling out a localized training program:

Proofread for Linguistic Errors

Linguistic errors can be disastrous when it comes to training, and since you want your eLearning course to be as effective as possible, it must be free of any cultural nuances and linguistic errors. Using an online tool for translating content is not effective enough since machine translation isn't capable of translating the nuances of language, which can be perceived differently in other languages and cause learning distractions. Your eLearning localization strategy should preferably see your learning materials localized by a professional service provider with experience in online training content. 

Adapt Your Images

Localized content will enhance the learning experience, but inappropriate graphics can easily see the efforts of your entire localization process go to waste. The images you use within your online training programs must resonate with and engage the target audience and must be culturally appropriate as well. If your visuals contain any text, these text elements also need to be translated and localized. Remember that some images and signs are received in a negative light in some countries, so it's essential to do a thorough review of your visuals before presenting them to a new audience.

Apply Cultural Competence

Your content always needs to be culturally appropriate and relevant; this is where professional website localization services and a smart eLearning localization strategy come in. When it comes to bridging the linguistic and cultural barrier, there is more than ample room for making significant mistakes. And in most cases, a single mistake in translation can see your entire message being misperceived by your new audience. Cultural translation and the eLearning localization process aim to understand and respect cultural differences and sensitivities and improve intercultural communication skills.

Use Relevant Narratives

It's best to keep your eLearning content simple and straightforward, so your audiences can relate to it. Use narratives that resonate with the culture of your target market if you're working around events and examples from the real world to demonstrate sections of your training. The simpler your content, the easier it will be to translate and localize for multiple audiences.

Adapt the GUI

You'll need to adapt the graphical user interface (GUI) in order to cater to your multilingual team members. It's especially important for languages like Arabic and Hebrew, which are written from right to left (RTL), unlike English, which reads from left to right (LTR). Your GUI must be able to cater to elements like these in order to improve the user experience during a training course. Outsourcing technical support to help you adapt the GUI should be part of your localization strategy if you do not have the skills in-house to perform this adaptation.

Final Thoughts

When you prioritize these fundamentals of eLearning localization, you're investing in the surety that your training materials will be experienced in the most effective way possible, regardless of your audience's culture or native language.

Failing to localize your training materials properly could negatively affect your organization's reputation. However, working with localization experts to ensure your courses meet the best practice requirements for eLearning localization will help increase engagement rates and enhance the learning process of everyone that takes your course.