Unify localization using user interface description languages anda navigation context-aware translation tool

Abstract

The past few years have shown a tendency from desktop software developmenttowards mobile application development due to the increasing amountof smartphone users and available devices. Compared to traditionaldesktop applications, requirements are different in the mobile world.Due to the massive amount of mobile applications it is importantto bring a new idea to the market very quickly and concurrently targeta large number of users all over the world. The aspect of localizationis crucial if the product should be usable in different countries.The term localization in this context refers to the process of adaptinga software to different regions by changing the language, image resources,reading direction or other regional requirements. The proposed solutioncovers the aspect of string translation, with a focus on deviceswhere the screen area is limited. Translating a software poses achallenge since the text can have several meanings on the one handand has to match the available screen space on the other hand.Knowing the context and area where a string appears in the user interfacecan improve the quality and accuracy of the translation. Besidesthat it reduces efforts for layout implementation and testing. Thispaper refers to that feature as navigation context-aware. A Context-AwareTranslation Tool (CATT) including this feature is presented. As aninput for the tool a user interface description language (UIDL) isused which contributes platform independence to the tool. To increasethe applicability of the tool to a number of description languages,a meta-model was created which specifies crucial compatibility requirements.An evaluation of existing languages regarding their compatibilityto the proposed model and a discussion of limitations is included.

Publication
Proc. EICS 2012: 4th ACM SIGCHI symposium on Engineering interactivecomputing systems