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

The past few years have shown a tendency from desktop software development towards mobile application development due to the increasing amount of smartphone users and available devices. Compared to traditional desktop applications, requirements are different in the mobile world. Due to the massive amount of mobile applications it is important to bring a new idea to the market very quickly and concurrently target a large number of users all over the world. The aspect of localization is crucial if the product should be usable in different countries. The term localization in this context refers to the process of adapting a software to different regions by changing the language, image resources, reading direction or other regional requirements. The proposed solution covers the aspect of string translation, with a focus on devices where the screen area is limited. Translating a software poses a challenge since the text can have several meanings on the one hand and has to match the available screen space on the other hand. Knowing the context and area where a string appears in the user interface can improve the quality and accuracy of the translation. Besides that it reduces efforts for layout implementation and testing. This paper refers to that feature as navigation context-aware. A Context-Aware Translation Tool (CATT) including this feature is presented. As an input for the tool a user interface description language (UIDL) is used which contributes platform independence to the tool. To increase the 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 compatibility to the proposed model and a discussion of limitations is included.