Explore useful tips for Testing Multi-Lingual Websites through this tutorial. Also, note the checklist for Multilingual Application Testing:
Nowadays a number of websites are deployed in multiple languages. As software organizations perform more and more business in several other/foreign countries, the number of such global multi-lingual web applications tends to increase considerably.
Testing web applications supporting multiple languages has its own fair share of challenges and risks in today’s fast-paced world. Since not everyone on the team is proficient in all languages, it will be difficult to test an application in ten languages in a limited amount of time and resources.
In this tutorial, we will discuss seven basic tips that will enable anyone to test multi-lingual browser-based applications thoroughly.
What You Will Learn:
- Basic Tips To Test Multi-Lingual Browser-Based Applications
- Tip #1: Prepare and Use the Required Test Environment (Dynamic Test Environment)
- Tip #2: Acquire Correct Translations
- Tip #3: Get Really Comfortable With the Application
- Tip #4: Start With Testing the Labels
- Tip #5: Gradually Start Testing Other Controls
- Tip #6: Do Test the Data (Character Encoding)
- Tip #7: Be Aware of Cultural Issues
- Additional Tips
- Checklist for Multilingual Application Testing
- Conclusion
Basic Tips To Test Multi-Lingual Browser-Based Applications
Tip #1: Prepare and Use the Required Test Environment (Dynamic Test Environment)
If a website is hosted both in English and Japanese languages, it is not just enough to simply change the default browser language and perform identical tests in both languages.
Rather, depending on its implementation, the website may figure out the correct language for its interface from the browser language setting, the regional and language settings of the machine, a configuration in the web application, or other factors.
Therefore, in order to perform a realistic test, it is imperative that the web application is to be tested from two machines i.e. one with the English operating system and the other with the Japanese operating system. You might want to keep the default settings on each machine as most of the users do not change the default settings on their machines.
Tip #2: Acquire Correct Translations
A native speaker of the language, belonging to the same region as the users, is usually the best resource to provide translations that are accurate in both the meaning as well as context.
If such a person is not available to provide you with translations of the text, then the team might have to depend on automated web translations available on websites like wordreference.com and dictionary.com.
It is always better to compare automated translations from multiple sources before using them in the test.
Tip #3: Get Really Comfortable With the Application
As you might not know all the languages supported by the website, it is always better for you to be very conversant with the functionality of the website. It is certain that you will test the application far better if you know the application’s functionality thoroughly.
Having a clear understanding of the application and the flow will help in identifying the linguistic breaks that might occur in different language versions of the same website.
Execute the test cases in the English version of the site a number of times. This, in turn, will help you to navigate easily within the other language version.
Otherwise, you might have to keep the English version of the site open in another browser in order to figure out how to proceed in the other language version (this indeed could slow down the testing).
Tip #4: Start With Testing the Labels
Start testing the other language versions of the website by first looking at all the labels, as labels are the most static controls on the web application. Labels are the primary interface help (tip/tooltip) for a user, thus one cannot afford to take any chances. Small mistakes here might prove costly in the future.
English labels are usually shorter and translated labels tend to expand. It is important to observe any issues related to label truncation, overlay on/under other controls, incorrect word wrapping, etc.
It is even more important to compare the labels with their translations in other languages. QA people should check the spelling and contents of the translated label, to ensure accuracy.
Tip #5: Gradually Start Testing Other Controls
Next, you could move on to checking the other controls for correct translations and any user interface issues. It is important that the website provides correct error notification messages in other languages.
The tests should include generating all the error messages. All the messages (e.g., success, file upload progress, etc.) that the application shows need to be auto-translated.
Tests should also be carried out on some other crucial UI control elements:
- All tooltips should be displayed in the appropriate translated language.
- All placeholders should be translated into the appropriate language.
- All the tabs should have suitable titles as per the website’s regional language.
- Exported files should exist in the appropriate language.
- Verification should exist for content management and structuring, as people from some regions read from ‘left to right’, while people from some other regions read from ‘right to left’.
- Checks should be carried out to verify file transfers.
- The pop-up message box should show the correct message.
Usually, for any text that is not translated, three possibilities exist i.e. the text will be missing or its English equivalent will be present or you will see junk characters in its place.
Tip #6: Do Test the Data (Character Encoding)
Usually, multi-lingual websites store the data in the UTF-8 Unicode encoding format. To check the character encoding for your website in Mozilla: go to View -> Character Encoding and in IE go to View -> Encoding.
In the case of the Chrome browser, character encoding cannot be adjusted. It can only be possible by using the Chrome extension (use the ‘Set Character Encoding’ add-on for Chrome). Data in different languages can be easily represented in this format.
Make sure to verify the input data. It should be possible to enter the data in another language on the website. The data displayed on the website should be correct. The output data should also be compared with its translation and content.
Tip #7: Be Aware of Cultural Issues
A significant problem in multilingual website testing is that each language may be intended for visitors from a specific culture. There may be differences between how visitors from other regions perceive a website and how users in your area perceive it. One of the key considerations when testing a multilingual website is being culturally appropriate.
Since culture and language are interconnected, change in one tends to change in the other. Many factors like preferred (and not preferred) colors, text direction (this can be left to right, right to left, or top to bottom), the format of salutations and addresses, measures, currency, etc. are different in different cultures.
Not only should the other language version of the website provide correct translations, but the other elements of the user interface such as text directions, currency symbols, date and number formats, telephone numbers, ZIP codes, calendars, etc. should also be correct according to the culture.
Additional Tips
Here are some additional tips based on the learnings:
- Do not translate the terminology and UI elements while reporting bugs. This will help the QA people to track the test cases and execute them.
- Prepare an ‘English’ to ‘<Selected Language>’ ‘internal’ glossary of the most common terminology and as many words as possible. This glossary can then be used by the QA people.
- To reduce regression testing time, try to understand, document, and remember the critical fields and business rules. This will also help in improving ad-hoc and exploratory testing.
- Increase the frequency of client communication to get any required help related to language testing.
Prepare a document that includes all the possible pages with the translation of each label, menu, button, etc. - Testing by selecting smaller modules (micro to macro approach) and verifying them in other (foreign) languages and then moving ahead with the next modules are really beneficial.
- Perform usability from the end-user (client) perspective.
Checklist for Multilingual Application Testing
- Verify if the application automatically detects the language using geo-location (if it is supported).
- Verify the labels for the text.
- Verify whether error/success/warning messages are correctly displayed according to the language.
- Verify if all the hyperlinks are functional and navigate to the respective pages.
- Verify the date and number formats.
- Verify if the browser title, page title, and all the breadcrumbs are translated and displayed correctly based on the detected language.
- Verify the text on menus and mega menus. Also, check if menus are displayed correctly.
- Verify if the alignment of text, images, icons, buttons, grid (table) columns, etc. is correct, as the length of the text varies depending on the language.
- Verify if the currency symbols are displayed according to the detected/selected language.
- Verify rendering of the font in responsive mode after translation in the respective language.
- Verify whether the data is stored in UTF-8 encoded format.
- Verify if the form submission (after adding data to the input fields) works seamlessly without any errors.
- Verify if the text direction and flow of data is according to the language/culture.
- Verify if the 404 page is available for the chosen language.
The basic testing process can include:
- Design test cases based on the above-mentioned checklist.
- Executing test cases on different language versions of the application (in short executing tests in different languages).
Conclusion
As you might have understood from the above discussion, using the correct test environment, getting enough application knowledge, and acquiring correct translations are critical in performing a successful test of other language versions of a website.
It would be great if you could share your thoughts on Testing Multi-Language Websites in the comments section below.
Many thanks to this article. This is very useful for me as i am currently testing japanese and simplified chinese application
This is indeed a good article. This article has opened up different possible erroneous areas while testing a Multi-Lingual Web application. Many thanks to this article.
Hi, these multi-lingual web sites tips had been a great help for me as currently I am testing web site which is in English and Japanese language. Testing is in very initial phase and we were struggling to finalise the approach for this testing, this article has been a great help in finalising an approach for my testing.
Thanks for this article , its very useful , i want to know about test cases – how to write test case (GUI, validation, Functionality).
thanks
Indeed a nice article,
Can you please share some knowledge about Multi-institutional supports in testing.
Thanks
Testing multi language web site is always a fun. I am on project of website internalization and multi language support is part of this project.
We find testing such application is very challenging and also fun work.
Besides testing testers can pay little attention over web site design also. Multi lingual web sites have some design standards like defining web page language in the head section
and converting meta tags to respective languages for SEO.
As a testers we can test these finer details to make multi language web site a success.
My wishes for this testing community..
is it similar to WAI(Web Accessibility Initiative)Testing..where we chack across various GUI related Information…
also those who are perforing this testing can get more information on W3C site..
Hi,
I am working on a application with 12 different languages.Here we have to select the language from drop down while login to the application.
But we are using only one machine to test for all langauges.we are not using different operating systems.Does it means it is wrong process?
we will get the coverted words for different languages from the client.
we will verify the lables according to the data.
Multi Lingual testing is very visual and can be tiresome on the eyes. The German umlaut and the French accent on the letter ‘e’ were often handled incorrectly and they either caused the application to crash (when the text was part of an error message), or the text that followed the special character would not be displayed at all. I’m now testing an English only accounting and distribution app., with seems to have a language of its own!
Hi Vijay,
Very nice article. Thanx for the information.
hi i am testing multilingual website. it is in initial phase please tell me about more about multilingual website. It is in english wants to convert in french & portugese
hi all, i am Rajesh. i am new to testing. may i know that what is the organizational structure? that means what are the different designations in a company and in testing field, i.e. like project lead, test manager, team lead….etc. plz clarify me.
Its a great article as you have covered each aspect of multi language application testing. These are very useful tips which will surely help me during testing multi language application.
hi,
very usefull….
Usefull article…… Please post the article covered the tips to test the business to business projects.
Dear all,
Many thanks for your comments!
Hitesh,
Please refer the article on writing effective test cases that is available at https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/how-to-write-effective-test-cases-test-cases-procedures-and-definitions/
Mitrasen,
Although a software application with multi-institutional support is naturally more complex than a similar one serving a single customer, their testing is fundamentally not different. However, the following points should be taken care of while testing the former:
1) The test environment should reflect multiple customers.
2) Application configuration and customer configuration functionalities should be tested carefully. Customer application functionality will be impacted by both the application configuration as well as customer configuration.
3) Data of one customer should be secure from the users of another customer.
Thanks,
Inder P Singh
Rajender,
Are you working on a Windows based application or a web based application? Please note that a couple of these tips are for web-based applications only.
It will give you more confidence if you are able to use a test environment that is identical (or as similar as possible) to the one that will be used by the end-user. Therefore, if you are testing in Spanish and have a test machine with Spanish operating system, any problems that you see are likely to be the ones seen by the Spanish user.
Inder P Singh
Hitesh,
Please refer the article on writing effective test cases that is available at https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/how-to-write-effective-test-cases-test-cases-procedures-and-definitions/
Inder P Singh
Mitrasen,
Although a software application with multi-institutional support is naturally more complex than a similar one serving a single customer, their testing is fundamentally not different. However, the following points should be taken care of while testing the former:
1) The test environment should reflect multiple customers.
2) Application configuration and customer configuration functionalities should be tested carefully. Customer application functionality will be impacted by both the application configuration as well as customer configuration.
3) Data of one customer should be secure from the users of another customer.
Thanks,
Inder P Singh
thank you Inder. One issue…
Points 1 and 3 stated here comes under defn of multi-insti. Its ok !
Regarding topic 2…while testing application config for a particular institution treats it like single institutional. can you please tell what aspects are practices of testing might be implemented for multi-institutional platforms. For example we are testing a Credit Card application which can be sold to many banks, keeping them on instituition level. We are dealing them separately and no conflicts so for…Is there anything more we need to test ?
Thanks
hi friends, i am into testing for few months, i have been assigned diffrent web applications to test (only GUI TESTING), I am putting my 100% effort to find each and every bug — but i cant, can any one help me out, what a areas to be concentrated— brief in very detail so i can falloew u
with regards
shyam
Nice points. Some random thoughts from my side on this subject-
– Sorting is another important areas that should be tested in the International websites. This can be tested in any areas of websites that displays the information in the tabular format. Sorting rules differ from locale to locale are a tricky proposition to test.
– Again, different countries may have different preferred payment types. If a website support multiple payment types, these should be throughly validated for default payment type in the website.
– There can be layout issues in the multi-lingual website. Because of string expansion, the text representation in different language wesbites will invariably differ primarily resulting in text truncations
– For a website being internationalized for the first time, it may be worthwhile exploring the use of Pseudo translation approach at the early stages of testing. It will help to find potential translation and hard coding issues much before actual translation has taken place.
– If fonts are not extarnalized properly, the different language websites may give text representation issues.
– After all this, imagine testing a Middle Eastern language- the whole paradigm of UI testing reverses in order to test Right to Left (RTL) UI.
Regards,
Anuj
wonderful anuj, i appreciate you
Wonderful article……..Thanks for the information…..
Hi,
Nice article….Inder
Write now I am working as a software tester and also learning Japanese. Can any one help me in knowing how to get into the multilingual testing job?
Thanks,
Maya
Hi
Nice Points, Some points from my side.
-Placeholders ae another very important area to be checked by placeholders i mean the labels, some dynamic content on the header image and every static content or image should be changed keeping few things in mind that width size of the page and height should be dynamic because content used in other languages usually expands out as while I was testing a site designed in English was to be tested in Spanish, when the site was converted into Spanish the whole site gets distorted due to expansion of the text. So this is a major concerned as everything in multilingual site should be dynamic from width to height.
-Second important thing is that If site has some email templates, I mean email is sent for any notifications than the email templates for every languages should be designed keeping in mind that user of Spain will only understand Spanish language, so a mail in English can hamper the site functionality.
Indeed a great information
Hi,
Thanks for the excellent article.
I wanted some advise from you on my career.
I am an expert in Japanese language and have good knowledge of C, C++, and Dot Net.
Currently I am thinking of doing a course in software testing.
What are the career prospects with my qualification?
Please could you also suggest some practice resources for the same.
Thanks in advance,
Joy
Hi,
Thanks for the excellent article.
This article helped a lot in understanding multi-lingual testing concept.
Thanks,
Dhanaji
Respected Sirs and Madams, especially to Mr.Vijay,
i am sirisha, i am new to testing. whenever i go for some interview they are asking what is “Negative Testing”? and write some nagative test cases for Yahoo login window? please guide me.
Respected Sirs and Madams, especially to Mr.Vijay,
i am sirisha, i am new to testing. whenever i go for some interview they are asking what is “Negative Testing”? and write some nagative test cases for Yahoo login window? please guide me.
please comment on nagative testing and give me nagative testcases for log window
@ sirisha666
Nagative Testing means testing aimed at showing software doesn’t work properly.
i am not exactly familiar to write “Nagative test cases for yahoo login window”. i hope some one will soon help you.
hi, in an interview they asked me Nagative test cases for Yahoo log in window. i said nagative test cases are “testing invalid Id,Password”. in 3 interviews i gave same answer, but they refused and said “Testing invalid Id, Password is not Nagative testing and it’s Functional Testing” because,” if we give invalid Id, Password then corresponding error mesage should be displayed” is a Functionality(feature) hence it is Functional Testing. these are not my words, just i faced in interview. help me please.
@sirisha
hi sirisha, i think you are bothering much about Nagative testing. Actually functional testing is two types. 1. Positive testing 2.Nagative testing. so testing the functionality with nagative intention i.e. test to fail intention is called nagative testing. nagative testing is nothing but testing with invalid data and try to break the system.
PLEASE COMMENT ON THIS
@ sirisha666
see -ve testing is defined as application shd break for corresponding i/p.so ur answer is perfect..dont bother this.
u r absolutely right..
@rahul
Thanks a lot. For my further doubts also please respond.
hi
can anyone please send me the test cases/tips on
how to effectively test a social networking website?
Site is aimed at making families of friends.
Gr8 Article.. Covers all major aspects… Thnx
I have had the pleasure of testing multi lang applications (office 2007) and websites. I agree with this article. It is best to use two computers side by side (as long as the software are mirror images of eachother). This was, you can have computer which you can refer to when testing i.e. english software and the other being the software tested in another language.
This makes life a lot easier and means you are able to use the same test scripts over and over on different languages. Hence, meaning you save valuable time not re-creating scripts or localising them for testers. This has the added benifit for companies as they do not need to find additional resources that speak or read the language being tested.
However, the disadvantage of this is that testers will not be able to determine spelling mistakes within web apps as such and are only performing functionality checks. On the other hand, it is highly recommanded that the scripts are automated to save time and money.
Good article. Enjoyed reading it.
Please specify, “What is the difference between .com and .co.in” for example google.com and google.co.in.
That is I know .com is commercial and .co.in for india.
hi,
very usefull for the testers
Sir,what is multi-lingual website and please tell me abt positive and negetive testing ??????
Can you please share some knowledge about Multi-institutional supports in testing.
Hello Amit,
Answer :
In General for Websites,
.com is for Commercial Websites Domians
.in is for india sites Domians
.uk is for united Kingdom sites Domians
.us is for United sites sites Domians
You got nice article here.. Thanks for the post
Thanks for the seven tips provided for testing multi-lingual websites. Till now, i have tested turkish & Dutch sites along with English verison. Certainly these tips will help me in testing & finding bugs in multi-lingual websites.
Hi, I am a Black Box Tester.
Currently I am planning to test an application in English (Currently present), French, German, Japanese and Chinese. I have no experience with these languages and I have no idea on how to proceed. Please help.
Ram
sramkumar@sify.com
Hi,
Thanks for the article it was helpful. I’m testing an application which is deployed in 15+ cultures. Though the through test is done by the people from the specific cultures I would like to simplify this task by automating most (at least the basic things like labels, etc.) items to be tested. Any suggestions on how I can go about doing this?
To set the encoding for all pages, add a Globalization property to the Web.config file.
Cross browser compatibility can be added to this option, I have seen the issue with one of the IE version when testing Chinese locale, also same was not observed with other IE
Thanks and Regards,
Jayesh Katariya
Thanks for the useful doc and I have a question .we are testing a Ukraine website where user will submit the form and data will get saved in DB.We are using toad and it wont accept ukranian charecters,so it will get saved in some other format (EX:¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿) So its very diffficult to identify whether correct value is getting updated in correct column or not.Can any one help me out?How we can made it easy to test?
Hi Inder,
Thanks for posting this article. Its very good & helpful. As i am working on 7 Multilingual website this tips is very help full. Site includes, English , Deutsch , Nederlands , Français , Português , Italiano , Español.
worth reading
thq…. for the article vijay its very useful
Good one to Read
Hi,
I have been testing Dutch and french sites since quite some time. I have few suggestions for the same.
If site search is incorporated in the multilingual site then try searching for a key word and click on the URL returned by the search. It would take us to that particular page. Now try changing the language and see if the system handles this.
Also, as the language change is stored in cookies, turn off cookies and then try changing the language and see if the system handles this by giving some proper error message or just crashes.
hey we are the last year students of computer engineering branch…we r doing project on -“improving testing techniques and reliability for web based applications “…do let us know how to work on it..and where to start…..pls help
Hi,
Great article and comments.
Does someone knows what automated tools are good for testing multi lingual web sites.
Or any other tools that will save some testing time.
Thanks in advance
Vesna
What should be severity for Multilingual Defects.
Since these defect can not cause any hang / crash so should these come in critical / major category.
Many developers need good translations in many languages for their websites and apps and this tool is really helpful when many translators have to work together.
Can some one let me know how to estimate the efforts for testing an application in multiple languages or browsers or platforms? Does it take the same amount of time to test for multiple languages or can we skip some test cases (functioanlity) and focus only on scenarios \ cases which laguage is important (like lables \ text messages \ error messages e.t.c)
Very very thanx for this article, I am new in testing so I think it will help me
Dear Inder,
I have a doubt about the multi-lingual website:
What things you would start to automate, what fields to pick up etc.
Please let me know.
Thanks
It is such a helpful article. It saved me from mess. Thank you
Hi,
Thanks for a Info.
Is there a way to automate multilingual websites.
Hi,
are there any tools to identify web page content is translated or not?
we have so many web pages need to test on translation.
Please suggest.
thansk
What a wonderful article in such simple and short words. Those points which you have mentioned in this article are very useful. Thanks for sharing this with us.