Nowadays a number of websites are deployed in multiple languages. As companies perform more and more businesses in other countries, the number of such global multi-lingual web applications tends to increase considerably.
Testing websites supporting multiple languages have their own fair share of challenges in today’s world.
In this tutorial, we will share seven basic tips that will enable you to test the multi-lingual browser-based applications in a complete way.
What You Will Learn:
Basic Tips To Test Multi-Lingual Browser-Based Applications
Tip #1: Prepare and Use the Required 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 the 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 website 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 many 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 you 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 the languages supported by the website, it is always better for you to be very conversant with the functionality of the website. Execute the test cases in the English version of the site a number of times. This, in turn, will help you to find your way 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 you down).
Tip #4: Start With Testing the Labels
You can start testing the other language versions of the website by first looking at all the labels. Labels are the more static items on the website.
English labels are usually short and translated labels tend to expand. It is important to spot 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 the other language.
Tip #5: Move on to 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 messages in other languages. The test should include generating all the error messages.
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
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. Data in different languages can be easily represented in this format.
Make sure to check 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.
Tip #7: Be Aware of Cultural Issues
A challenge in testing Multi-Lingual websites is that each language might be meant for users from a particular culture.
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, the other elements of the user interface For Example, text direction, currency symbol, date format, etc. should also be correct.
Conclusion
As you might have gathered from the tips given above, using the correct test environment and acquiring correct translations is critical in performing a successful test of other language versions of a website.
About the Author: This article is a guest post by Inder P Singh.
It would be interesting if you could share your experience with Testing Multi-Language websites in the comments section below.
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.