eLearning Localization Guide
Introduction
Learning and collaboration look very different today, even compared to just a few years ago. Workplaces, education, and content have become increasingly enmeshed—and increasingly global. While exact figures vary, studies across the board indicate that eLearning as an industry is poised for significant growth over the next decade.
Snapshot: eLearning Growth & Headwinds
- The global corporate eLearning market size will be worth $50 billion by 2026, with an annual growth rate of 15% from 2020 to 2026. (Business Wire)
- By 2025, the global massive open online course (MOOC) market size is expected to reach $21.4 billion. (Mordor)
- By moving from physical classrooms to corporate e-learning tools, Dow Chemical saved $34 million and reduced its training course costs from $95 per learner to $11 per learner. (Belitsoft)
- In some large organizations, up to 60% of total training costs are attributed solely to travel. (KPMG)
Between the pandemic, accelerated remote work trends, and the rapid normalization of video calls, the days of the traveling trainer are mostly over. In the age of digital self-service learning, and with training delivery to other countries becoming quite feasible, your next greatest obstacle is language and culture.
What does this mean for those responsible for eLearning in their organizations, in whole or in part? Your responsibilities may be taking off right now. Likely, with no end in sight. And if your scope is global, the complexity of your job will continue expanding, too.
We created this guide for one simple reason: to provide a step-by-step process that will help your global eLearning content project succeed.
It’s not easy to speak like a local, especially when you have many locales to support. In too many cases, unsuccessful global content overlooks (even inadvertently) the vast intercultural differences between HQ and satellite offices. Or, in the case of eLearning course creators, a product launch could fail to achieve meaningful reach or revenue due to a cultural or linguistic disconnect, even if it was previously a bestseller in its home market.
Poor outcomes are never the intention, especially after weeks or months of hard work. Your global audiences could be left with a sense that you don’t “get” them. This result might even fly under the radar.
Trust can be built here, or it can be broken.
From our perspective, these common pitfalls are 100 percent avoidable. With the right strategy, you can create effective global content faster than before and strengthen your relationships with diverse audiences.
A desire to bridge the gap between diverse lived experiences goes a long way. But wishful thinking isn’t enough—it’s about connecting intentions to actions. The most successful content developers lead with curiosity and listen to their audience so that they can speak authentically and knowledgeably.
You don’t need to be fluent in your content project’s target language(s), but you do need to learn best practices for cross-cultural communication. Expect some surprises. Definitely check your assumptions at the door. The real skill is to recognize the subtle and not-so-subtle influences of our own experiences—which don’t always hold true elsewhere.
Infusing localization into your strategy is often the tipping point for success.
Localization (and Its Relationship to Translation)
Translation is an important component of your global eLearning strategy. It’s never as simple as dictionary inputs and dictionary outputs. Without nuance or consideration for the big-picture meaning or cultural influences, the results can go wrong, very quickly.
When developing successful eLearning content, especially for international audiences, a greater degree of transformation must occur. This is where localization comes into the picture.
Localization is the process of adapting translations to the culture and context of a target market so that they look and feel natural and native.
It’s not all that different from how product designers consider users. Delivering a quality product that considers the user’s needs and experience builds and sustains trust, loyalty, and engagement. The final result is not a knock-off of the original, but rather a local version positioned for success—because it’s a product of native speakers.
The difference can come down to very simple elements of execution, such as visual and spoken cues that establish familiarity and context. These cues might be a restroom sign, the way an everyday meal looks on a plate, or the metaphors and colloquial sayings that add richness and variety to communication. Sports, idioms, and other everyday turns of phrase simply don’t translate and can throw things off-kilter.
For example, say a few US-based cues make it past the review team. The depiction of lunchtime is a sandwich at a work desk. The restrooms are labeled “Bathrooms.” A few US office buzzwords are translated, literally. If the audience is not US-based, these cues take away from the content’s intended experience. And its core purpose may become, quite literally, lost in translation
In the context of eLearning, the localization process examines the cause and purpose behind elements of content: narratives, images, ideas, and overarching concepts. It’s more upfront work, but pays dividends in the end. At times, localization can feel like you are going backward instead of forward since you are frequently revisiting decisions or even tiny details that were assumed to be complete. But the earlier you can confront even the most minute assumptions, the easier it will be to correct issues for the benefit of your global audience.
This guide offers a step-by-step playbook for developing impactful eLearning content for a global audience and keeping your project on track for a successful, efficient launch. We’ll share strategic and technical best practices to overcome common challenges, including:
- Key steps to align your global stakeholders.
- A more effective order of operations for global content production.
- Preventing bottlenecks before they interfere with timelines.
- Leveraging AI tools to avoid common technical issues and support a smooth launch.
- Identifying an ideal language partner for eLearning localization.
eLearning at a Glance
Content Vertical
• Human Resources
• Employee Learning
• Employee Engagement
• Legal
• Corporate
Audience
• Internal audiences
• Employees
• Contractors
Common Media Types
• Decks/Presentations
• PDFs
• Handbooks
• Contracts/Agreements
• Videos
Content Vertical
• Marketing
• Branding
• Product
• Influencer
• Niche Topics
Audience
• Customers
• Subscribers
• Fans
Common Media Types
• Videos
• eBooks
• Presentations
• Courses
Content Vertical
• Education
• University
• Certification
Audience
• Students
• Subscribers
• Customers
Common Media Types
• Courses
• Videos
• eBooks
• PDFs
• Decks/Presentations
Chapter 1: Develop a Global Strategy
Coordinate globally, delight locally
Chapter Goals:
- Learn how to identify and incorporate the content needs of global content consumers.
- Create a stakeholder engagement framework for global eLearning content creation.
The best content feels like it was made for you—not adapted from another source. This chapter is designed to help you leverage this strategy for global eLearning content, when the cultural context of your audiences varies from your own.
To begin, let’s review a brief story about a US-headquartered company with a satellite office in Tokyo, and a global sales enablement content project.
“Our team was tasked with unifying content resources for sales enablement processes worldwide. The content piece in question was a new deck that our US-based marketing team created for the US sales team. We needed to make sure every salesperson worldwide was using the same messaging, telling the same stories about our product and company, so global customers would receive a consistent, managed experience with our brand.
In hindsight, we made the mistake of not consulting with our satellite offices first. After 3 months of content translation and multimedia production, we ended up in limbo for an additional 6 months between our office and the Tokyo sales team. While the feedback requests from these colleagues were perfectly reasonable in theory, we’d already used up our budget on graphics, animation, and platform integration. So, our team had to wait another 6 months until we could start over.”
This outcome underscores the importance of involving global partners from the beginning stages. Overlooking even the most subtle cultural nuances can derail a global content project.
The following best practices will help you develop a future-proofed global content production plan and stay focused on the decisions with the highest ROI for your time and funds.
Global Stakeholder Engagement
A global stakeholder engagement committee is a group of people who can represent your end users and provide valuable input into the design and language of your eLearning content.
Why is this necessary? Your stakeholders know your audience (because they are your audience). Even the simplest assumptions, like how two colleagues are expected to greet each other, can vary significantly between cultures. Inclusive collaboration creates the space to course-correct the small but necessary changes that are costlier to fix later. Here’s how to approach it.
Forming & Working With a Global Stakeholder Committee
1. Assess your global audience(s)
Where are you launching content? You need to account for linguistic and cultural variations, which means one representative from each region at a minimum.
2. Engage your linguistic partner
Working with an outside firm for translation and localization? Now is a good time to ask for input regarding your stakeholder committee. You’ll receive even better insights at this stage if your partner offers direct eLearning capabilities. More on this in Chapter 3.
3. Define the expectations of stakeholder participation
Before making your request, make sure you are clear on what you need from stakeholders. They are not expected to translate, but you will need their eyes on all aspects of content: words, visuals, and themes. Also, agree on the concepts and presentation–an often overlooked problem is that the concept or approach is completely alien to the group–it won’t matter what dictionary you use if you aren’t addressing the main problem.
4. Ask for stakeholder participation
Your stakeholders should be proficient in the source language. You should plan for a few review rounds from them. Ideally, you can align these review rounds with dates to be considerate of your committee members’ schedules. Emphasize that honest feedback is expressly requested. If you don’t have the luxury of a dedicated team, at the very least get buy-in on the source language concepts.
5. Be prepared to engage right away
Asking for participation and following up a month later with committee assignments is a good way to lose momentum. Come to the table with a well-thought-through plan, a map for your source content, and a robust feedback questionnaire to jump right into the work.
Regional Considerations
North America / South America / Latin America (LATAM)
Source one stakeholder for each country to account for linguistic and cultural variation. If Spanish-speaking users span the continents, understand that there’s no universal Spanish, but there is a general agreement on “neutral” language.
Europe / Africa (EMEA)
Source one stakeholder from each country to account for linguistic and cultural variation. Be wary of cultural differences between countries with shared national languages. Those with colonial histories, such as French, English, Dutch and Portuguese, bear regional and cultural specifics. Also, since Arabic is written in a different direction, it requires a change in design layouts, which frequently come up in the software and documentation stages.
Asia / Pacific (APAC)
Source one stakeholder for each country to account for linguistic and cultural variation. Larger nations, such as China and India, might require multiple stakeholders to account for regional differences. Written and spoken forms vary, as do punctuation and direction. Some languages are top to bottom, or bottom to top.
English to English Localization
English-speaking countries have unique cultural attributes across linguistics, themes, visuals, and more. Phrases that seem innocuous in one region could be viewed as humorous or offensive in others.
Chapter 2: Create Your Source Content
Conquer complexity with effective planning
Chapter Goals:
- Kick off content production successfully.
- Optimize the process for localization.
As you start producing your source material, there are ways to make life easier for yourself and your stakeholders. For starters, consider how you can take language down to the basics. “Global English” represents the most neutral, approachable language possible. Leave complex metaphors, visuals, idioms, and concepts on the cutting floor. This leaves room for local variations to flourish.
Flexibility is key, as is clarity—especially if your global stakeholders have varying proficiency levels in the source language.
Order of Operations
Create a content outline
Stakeholder review
Implement feedback
to generate content variations for each region
Outline audio/ visual resources
scripts, storyboards, voice captions, video and graphic overlay text
Stakeholder approval
Implement feedback
to finalize your source materials for each region
Provide source assets
to your language partner
Contents of a Global Stakeholder Review: The deeper the review now, the better.
- All text
- Font selection
- Visuals/designs
- Voiceover scripts
Source Files: Using AI for Image Enhancement
If you have a low-resolution image, AI-powered image upscaling allows for a low-resolution image to be sharpened. Your language partner should be able to assist here, saving you time and budget.
Source Files Unavailable or Lost?
Don’t worry. AI can help here, too. Ask your language partner how. See Chapter 4 for more on AI.
Creating an Effective Feedback Loop
The review process gives your stakeholders a lot of control. This is where trust comes into play. Remember: good feedback leads to good content, but superb feedback can lead to superb content.
A 1:1 dictionary-based translation is not always what you need. It’s more about the broader context, storytelling mechanisms, or even the smallest visual details, achieving a natural manner of speaking and engaging. The goal is to ensure audience focus on the content—not distracting mistranslations or cultural faux pas.
The better the review, the easier the later review rounds tend to go. This process can avoid a final product that’s out of touch or even offensive, resulting in wasted effort, missed launch dates, and strained relationships.
Advice: Parallel Project Management
We recommend that you pursue parallel project management. That way, if you identify a cross-cultural issue in one language, you can propagate changes to the others before they enter multimedia production. This concept requires a high degree of orchestration, which is rewarded with the achievement of a simultaneous global launch.
Advice: Graphic Design
Localized content often leads to varying lengths, whether it’s in more or fewer pages, minutes, slides, characters, et al. Graphic designers should be prepared to leave plenty of breathing room to account for global variations that end up as denser or longer than its source.
This rigorous production effort will smooth the handoff to your language partner. In this next stage, you will be able to be a little more hands-off (albeit not completely) and enjoy the benefits of all your upfront planning.
Chapter 3: Identify Your Ideal Language Partner
Supercharge your outcomes with eLearning content experts
Chapter Goal: Identify the best possible language partner for your organization.
When it’s time for language services to take over, the challenge specific to eLearning is not necessarily the translation aspect of a project. It’s the complexity of delivery.
eLearning is much more multifaceted than most language companies are equipped to handle (but often won’t admit up front). Typical projects require linguists and quality assurance. In addition, eLearning projects need narrators, graphic designers, video editors, and more with sharp linguistic capabilities.
Companies overextend and overpromise, often using outsourcing as a bandage. Since eLearning requires so many different types of media, as many as 7-10 different groups could end up working on your project. This is neither cost-effective nor ideal for end-product quality.
The best-case scenario is to find a flexible, mature partner with proven eLearning experience. Here’s what to look for in a language partner proposal to separate good partners from excellent ones:
Service Offered
In-house expertise with eLearning project management.
What You Can Expect
Effective communication on project needs, status, and troubleshooting.
Service Offered
Multimedia content localization expertise.
What You Can Expect
Effective collaboration between linguists and multimedia producers.
Service Offered
Clear boundaries of what they can and more importantly, can’t do.
What You Can Expect
Honesty and transparency.
Service Offered
Voiceover support, talent selection, multimedia editing capabilities, and pronunciation guides
What You Can Expect
Proactive management of eLearning’s (arguably) stickiest areas.
Service Offered
Review support
What You Can Expect
How and through which methods your language partner will provide quality assurance.
The value of your language partner goes beyond execution. They should be proactively identifying ways to streamline the process. The more information you provide upfront, the better they can guide you in the right direction.
Once you’ve found your language partner and handed off your source material, you can take a brief pause as you let them get to work.
Chapter 4: Deploy Translation, Localization, and QA Efforts
Let the experts play their part. Be on call for feedback
Chapter Goals:
- Reap the benefits of your stakeholder engagement strategy.
- Extract value from AI tools without detracting from product quality.
From this point forward, your content is in the hands of your linguists and reviewers. Global stakeholders have already signaled their preferences, and you’ve made those preferences a priority. Your content foundations are solid. You can expect a relatively smooth journey ahead.
When technical challenges come along, your team will be ready to take them in stride, too. By providing graphic and animation source files, your language team can enhance, adjust, or catch localization issues. This reduces the back-and-forth that slows down timelines (and crowds your inbox).
What happens if source files aren’t available? A savvy language partner can use artificial intelligence (AI) to work around this common issue.
AI Tools That Support eLearning Localization
AI magic can’t solve all our needs. But it can help get pieces of the work completed faster. Your language partner ought to be using AI in a few key ways. Especially when it comes to localizing media-rich projects. (Though, if they’re replacing linguists with AI, that’s not a good indicator of quality.)
AI for Voiceovers
Voiceover technology allows learners to listen to content while reading. This advance is a boon for attention and retention, especially when attempting to combat screen fatigue for lengthier content.
But, sourcing in-country voiceover talent can be a costly and lengthy process. Recording, editing, rerecording, and post-production add days to your turnaround. AI can work well as a voiceover solution, but a linguist must take accountability for reviewing and remediating issues.
AI for Graphics and Video
For those who aren’t digital media savvy, source files contain rich, complex data that allow editing in certain programs, such as Adobe Cloud. Source files are large and unwieldy, but AI can make image editing much easier by reducing production’s dependence on cumbersome (and often missing) source files.
AI can often work with smaller, even lower-resolution files to sharpen their look and even better localize your content. This could look like swapping in local-oriented signs, removing background noise or music from videos, or adjusting logos to account for global variations.
AI Limitations
You never want the first QA check for localization to be your end user. Always ensure a linguist supervises AI work and is technically equipped to intervene.
Even the most sophisticated AI tools can’t do everything for us. Phonetic issues happen in AI-generated voiceovers. The tone and inflection can be off. Machine-generated images can appear disjointed or contrived. AI language models aren’t always accurate, and these tools are many years away from completely transforming the processes in translation and localization.
When AI does work, it shortens the time-intensive processes critical to global content success, freeing up time for specialized production areas and quality assurance. The human touch is still absolutely essential, which will ensure your content is buttoned up for a successful global launch.
Feedback & Handoff
Once your language services provider starts sharing translated content for your review, this is the ideal moment to reengage your global stakeholders. Make sure they are comfortable with not only the words on the page, but the visuals, audio, and overall flow of the content. They’ll be able to identify any missing pieces to revise and finalize.
Before you know it, it will be time to launch.
Chapter 5: Launch Your eLearning Content Globally
Pat yourself on the back for a job well done
Chapter Goals:
- Celebrate a successful global launch.
- Measure your outcomes.
Remember that story from the US-Japan team from the beginning of this eBook? They started over. This time, they used the process outlined in these chapters. Here is the result:
“The US team invested more time upfront to engage the Japan team. They were invited to comment on the materials, and we adopted their suggestions. More time was spent at the beginning than the last time, but it didn’t matter—we launched this project on schedule, under budget, and without any latent friction. Upon first glance of the final content, the changes appeared to be minor. But it made all the difference to the local team. Now, it was actually usable, and well-aligned with the company’s global sales strategy.”
When revisiting this project, the team learned the concept of “global English,” which provided a more adaptable framework for the subject matter. It was still accurate and correct, but left room for local flavor. This led to a much better message, and over the long term, this group reported better coordination and a more effective working relationship.
Feedback & Handoff
Once your language services provider starts sharing translated content for your review, this is the ideal moment to reengage your global stakeholders. Make sure they are comfortable with not only the words on the page, but the visuals, audio, and overall flow of the content. They’ll be able to identify any missing pieces to revise and finalize.
Before you know it, it will be time to launch.
Ready to Launch
When preparing to launch your global eLearning content, there are two overarching approaches to consider.
→ Simultaneous: Is it important for all audiences to gain access at the same time? If so, a simultaneous launch might be right for you. Parallel project management is likely the best framework to prepare for a successful simultaneous launch.
Pros: It makes for good marketing: “Live in 24 countries as of our launch date.”
Cons: It’s a hustle to the finish.
→ Staggered: If timing is less important, a staggered launch might be a little more forgiving on your team’s bandwidth.
Pros: Time management might be in your favor, depending on the size of your team and stakeholder committee. However, this may be less relevant if you’re working with the right language partner who can help organize the workflow effectively.
Cons: You can find a marketing spin, but it’s less flashy than a simultaneous launch. This may or may not be important to your organization.
Success Measures
Sometimes, the effect of localization is not apparent. If the content feels native, you’ve done everything right. If anything, success flies under the radar. Still, there are ways to measure success and help provide evidence and social proof for future projects.
1. Consider surveying global users
Craft questions that get to the heart of their user experience, perception of quality, and level of engagement.
2. Engagement metrics count
Don’t forget that positive engagement outcomes, whether measured in downloads, minutes watched, or quiz scores, are a direct result of your localization efforts.
3. Lean on your language partner
Your language partner should be able to provide you with metrics to identify success factors that go beyond linguistic quality.
Global eLearning Content Expertise: Partner with PGLS
While the scale of a global eLearning content project can be difficult to conceptualize at the start, your language partner should be able to guide the way.
The project’s management footprint will continue to expand as you move forward. Thousands of files and gigabytes of data can quickly get out of hand. Experienced eLearning practitioners know which small yet methodical actions will rein in the complexity to keep the work on track.
PGLS will set you up for success from the start. Many of our competitors outsource core eLearning translation tasks to third parties. This creates a production environment rife with disconnects and makes implementing your feedback more difficult and time-consuming.
PGLS offers a vertically integrated production environment to ensure oversight across every step of translating and localizing your eLearning content. Not only does this ensure a high-quality product, it also reduces your turnaround time—so you can launch your global project sooner.
Here’s how we do it. PGLS assembles an eLearning development team that spans a variety of disciplines. Our multimedia specialists, linguists, AI experts, and project managers collaborate closely to deliver polished, localized content. These teams are consistent from start to finish to ensure continuity, quality, and streamlined costs, collaborating on an internal shared platform to directly address any emergent issue across multiple disciplines.
Our approach is proven to work in your best interest as you take on the world with your eLearning content.
Contact PGLS today to learn how we can take your global eLearning project to the next level.