The Best Blockchain Localization Tools to Localize your Fintech Application in 2023

2022-11-24

The Best Blockchain Localization Tools to Localize your Fintech Application in 2023

Table of Contents

Blockchain localization tools can enable blockchain companies to attract more users worldwide. After all, language and culture are powerful trust-building mechanisms. By leveraging them properly, you can create a reputable brand that is appreciated by blockchain fans across continents.

That being said, not all localization efforts are created equal. Most translation and localization companies rely on outdated methods that do not necessarily fit best with a state-of-the-art localization company in 2023. Instead of relying on Excel, there are methods that can enhance your localization efficiency and support your market-entry strategy.

Blockchain localization: Why should you invest?

Before we discuss how you can localize your products better, we need to establish the value of localization and said methods. After all, why would you go through the effort of localizing if it was of little benefit to your venture? The short answer is investing in localization is typically lucrative.

According to a lengthy report published in 2020, accurately dubbed “Can’t Read, Won’t Buy” by CSA research, your potential customers strongly prefer using your products and services in their native language. In fact, consider the following statistics:

 
  • 65% prefer accessing content in their preferred language.
 
  • 73% want product reviews in their own language.
 
  • 40% will not buy a product or service in another language.

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Common Sense Advisory (CSA) is a market research company that focuses on globalization and the value of localization. In their “Can’t Read Won’t Buy” report, they surveyed almost 1,000 business users in 24 different countries, and an additional 8,700 consumers from 29 countries.

But research is research, and one could argue that it doesn’t always reflect business realities. In that spirit, we can also take a quick look at what value businesses actually get from localization.
 
Consider the case of CD PROJEKT, a Polish gaming company. In 2007, they released their first title, the Witcher, in a single language. Fast forward to today, and the company’s two major titles, the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, have been released in 16 and 24 different languages, respectively. 

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt sold an impressive 2.5 million copies in Poland alone (the company’s local market). Contrast that with the 40+ million copies it sold worldwide in 2022 alone. As for Cyberpunk 2077, they sold 1.35 million copies locally and another 18+ million copies worldwide. CD PROJEKT’s globalization efforts generated at least 15 times more revenue. In fact, if you include all their other services, according to their own 2021 annual report, 97.6% of their entire sales revenue was generated through their globalization efforts.
CD Projekt sales for the Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt & Cyberpunk 2077

And if you still need convincing, we can provide you with an industry-specific case. As you probably know, Coinbase is a huge cryptocurrency trading platform. According to the company’s financial report, in 2021 alone, they generated $1.5 billion dollars from international markets, compared to $116 in 2019. That’s almost a 13x increase!

As you can imagine, Coinbase takes its localization efforts seriously. In fact, if you head to its website, you can see that it’s localized into 14 different languages, even differentiating between Spanish from Spain and Spanish from the Americas. And there is no doubt in our minds that this is not the last language they will add. After all, it’s worth the money.

Coinbase languages - Transphere

Simply put, by not localizing your blockchain products, you are simply leaving money on the table, money that will be taken by your competitors.

Let the blockchain localization start.

 

Basic localization process.

Before starting your localization, you must first ensure that your blockchain application is already internationalized. How could we ensure that the application is internationalized? Here are some internationalization checks that you need to carry out:
  • Ensure text strings appearing on the UI, e.g., charts, are externalized in a separate folder.
  • Ensure the UI can handle Right-To-Left Languages.
  • Ensure proper encoding of files.
  • Ensure the UI layout is adaptable, i.e., it can accommodate text expansion from different translations.
After carrying out an extensive internationalization check, the localization process may begin. The basic process is as follows:
  • Translatable strings are sent off through email or in other ways to an LSP or localization team.
  • The translation is carried out, followed by proofreading.
  • Approved translations are sent to the development team.
  • Translated strings are merged back into the blockchain application.
  • Localization testing is carried out by the development team.
Traditional localization workflow - Transphere
Traditional localization workflow

As simple as this may seem, the process is more complicated than what meets the eye. It is really crucial to adapt a localization workflow/process that can keep up with the fast-paced agile nature of app development. An improved and efficient agile localization process would be as follows:

  • Pushing the source code to a remote repository, i.e., on GitHub.
  • Localization team pulls the translatable string files from their TMS.
  • Translation is carried out, followed by proofreading.
  • Approved translations are pushed back to the repository.
  • Localization testing is carried out by the development team.
 
Improved localization workflow using continuous localization - Transphere
Improved localization workflow

Why are modern blockchain localization solutions better?

With modern tools, high efficiency and collaboration can be easily achieved if they are implemented in the right way.

Industry-backed improvements

As you can imagine, using the appropriate process and toolkits can substantially improve your localization efficiency. That’s not just our opinion; several cases showcase this reality. In fact, Intel is a good example. Once they implemented a state-of-the-art localization process, they managed to drive down their year-to-year translation costs by a staggering 40%. 

Studies have found that companies using continuous localization have seen an average of 10-30% improvement in time to market, a 20-50% reduction in localization costs, and an improved customer experience by up to 30%. Granted, cost reduction may largely depend on other factors tied to your continuous localization workflow (i.e., MTs, TMS, TMs, etc.). That being said, what is consistently improved through the implementation of CL is your organization’s efficiency and quality.

Quality

By starting your localization process early, both linguists and designers can start working on early prototypes of the designs, instead of waiting for the product to be fully developed. Due to its iterative nature, quick improvements can be made, both to the actual product and to its localization. 

 

Time-to-market.

By dividing batches into small segments, and then carrying out targeted development and testing, products can continue to make instant adjustments based on user requirements.

Since linguists and designers can check localized prototypes directly and give real-time feedback instead of reviewing the output after the product is developed, the process duration is shortened.

The image below shows the benefits of leveraging modern solutions such as continuous localization, which works in parallel with development hence shortening the release.

 

The best blockchain localization tools

Although there are countless tools you could leverage to tackle your blockchain localization, we will provide you some user-friendly tools, both free and paid.

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What is Locize?

Locize is a translation management system designed to help software companies streamline their localization process. It’s a cloud-based centralized platform that integrates software tools with localization tools. It allows you to smoothly push and pull strings directly into and out of your code. It also has its own translation memory, machine translation, and many more features.


The Locize demo

For our first demonstration, we will rely on the free version of Locize. This way, you can try it yourself without spending a single dollar. We will also use on an open-source blockchain web application that we will translate into simplified Chinese.
Trading platform UI
The Best Blockchain Localization Tools to Localize your Fintech Application in 2023

To start off, we carried out an internationalization check to ensure that the blockchain application is ready for localization to mitigate any future bugs that might have otherwise been caused. We then pushed the source code to our Github repository.

After that, we went on to create a project on Locize, and we decided to implement automation through our internal continuous localization server, which runs on Serge.

Locize UI
Locize UI

Serge relies on a configuration file that tells it:

  1. The location of the locales folder.
  2. The remote repository URL.
  3. Where to save translation files and many more.
 

We needed our project information (the project ID, version, language, and namespace) to implement this process. All of that is available on the settings page. These parameters are required to be used in the configuration file for the purposes of automation, in our case.

the project ID, version, language, and namespace (blockchain localization)
The project ID, version, language, and namespace

We generated the configuration file programatically and pushed it to the server where Serge runs as a background task and automatically checks configuration files to process. Once the configuration file is in the right location, the process starts.

We generated the configuration file programmatically and pushed it to the server where Serge runs as a background task. It automatically checks configuration files to process. Once the configuration file is in the right location, the process starts. Under the hood, this is what goes on:

  1. The server clones the source code, where the source language file is processed and pushed to the Locize Translation Management Platform.
 
  1. Source strings are pushed to Locize through custom plugin functions that can be included in the configuration file. 
 
  1. Translated strings are pulled from Locize through a custom plugin function included in the configuration file. The custom function used an API endpoint to pull the source strings and write the translation data in corresponding files.

4. After all the required translatable strings were translated, as seen above, they were reviewed and published. The published strings are pulled back into the cloned source code repository on the server and pushed back and merged into the main GitHub repository.

Finally, we updated our local repository and carried out localization testing, which included the following:

  • Checking for UI layout breaks across different locales.
 
  • Checking for missing translations.
 

All it takes is one configuration file to keep everything on auto-pilot. This goes to say that even though the cost of implementing modern solutions might be high, it saves you time and money in the long run.

For the next tool, we will use Lokalise, a famous platform in the localization world.

 

 

The Lokalise demo

 For Lokalise, the blockchain localization process is simplified and more user-friendly. All the development team had to do was a quick internationalization check and then push the code to GitHub. That’s it? Yep, that’s it!

From that point onward, the translators can get started. All communication and collaboration can happen directly on the Lokalise platform. Say goodbye to waiting for email replies. Here are the steps we took to localize the blockchain app you saw before. You can take the same basic steps to create your own continuous localization pipeline, significantly improving your blockchain localization efficiency.

1.        Create a project on Lokalise and set it up according to your needs. Next, navigate inside the project, click on Apps, and search for GitHub. After that, you will have to authorize Lokalise to access your GitHub repository. 

This is what the localization project on Lokalises should look like.
This is what the localization project on Lokalises should look like.

2.      Configure and set up the integration according to your repository information. Next, select the source language file and click on Confirm.

The Best Blockchain Localization Tools to Localize your Fintech Application in 2023
The configuration should look like this.
Continuous Localization- Lokalise-Transphere
The source language file.

3.      You can now see your repository integration information (as seen in the image below). Click on Pull now, and the strings will be pulled into Lokalise with a single click.

The Best Blockchain Localization Tools to Localize your Fintech Application in 2023
The repository integration information.

At this point, translation can start. But remember, this is a blockchain app with a lot of technical jargon. So providing visual context will help your translators create higher-quality translations and reduce back-and-forth exchanges.

4.      To do this, navigate to the Screenshots tab and upload relevant screenshots. 

Hover on each string. Transphere - Continuous Localization
Hover on each string.

While translating, you can see the strings’ position and context.

5.      Go ahead and create a translation task under the tasks tab. Once everything is translated, reviewed, and approved, it is time to push the translated strings back to the repository.

This is how the task creation should look on Lokalise.
This is how the task creation should look on Lokalise.
The translation task was created successfully.
The translation task was created successfully.
Lokalise Editor for string translation.
Lokalise Editor for string translation.

6.      When everything is ready, navigate to the Download tab and set up the download configuration you need.

Make sure to select the option according to your file structure in the repository and fill in the path.

7.      Under App triggers, select GitHub. Once selected, select the repository in the Filter repositories box. Click on Build only, and this will create a pull request to the selected repository.

Alternatively, you can first click on Preview to check the strings on another tab.

8.      Now it’s time for the developers to look at the pull request and merge it. 

The pull request screen.
The pull request screen.
Testing time
Testing time

9.      Finally, you can test the localized process.

 

Our demonstration ends here, and we hope to have shown you a little bit about how effective modern tools can be. Not only are they cost-effective, but they can also increase your efficiency to a high degree.

Of course, localization has more steps than what we have showcased. But this should be a great starting point. That being said, if you need a thorough approach that takes your product from its initial stages to the final ones, working with a team of professionals remains your best bet.

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