e-learning localization at its best

Let’s play a little game, shall we?

Imagine you walk into your local corner store and see two new additions in the cookies section. One is a nice colorful packet. It looks promising, but there’s one problem: everything on the packaging is in Mandarin, which you don’t speak.

All you can see are Mandarin characters. You have no idea what they say.

Yes, you can see munchy pictures of cookies; but you can’t read any of the text, you’re not sure what flavor the cookies are, and at this point, you’re not even sure they’re still cookies!

Then, there’s another packet of cookies labeled in simple English you understand; you can read that they are milk and oat flavored, yummy.

You can see that the pack contains 41 cookies, enough to go round.

Clearly stated concise pieces of information.

Which would you naturally pick off the shelf without hesitation?

I think we both know the answer to that.

Localization at its best.

Let’s apply this little game to e-learning courses.

We are a highly diverse and multicultural human race. If you intend for your courses to cater to a varied audience with different orientations, norms, and social nuances, you have to localize the content for each audience with themes, symbols, fonts, colors, speech, etc. that they are used to.

It has been proven that it is much easier for an individual to grasp, retain, and apply knowledge delivered in a comfortable and familiar environment.

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

E-learning course localization not only saves you future costs and time, it also breaks down the psychological barrier people have when it comes to unfamiliar ideas and concepts.

Think about our game at the beginning of this piece. There is every chance the Mandarin cookies will be even more delicious than the other packet. You’ll never know because that cookie company failed to localize its content.

The goal of your courses is most likely to train and educate, right?

Well, go all the way and localize that content today.

Your audience will be glad you did, and so will you.

In a B2B setting, localizing your courses gives your employees a chance to assimilate vital points, because they’re clear and more actionable.

This, in turn, leads to increased productivity, which, as you must have guessed, is a good thing to have in your business, right?

Localizing content is more than an optional fix. It’s like creating a new road: it’s not enough to uproot trees and hack off branches – what you’re creating is simply a trail.

Localized content is the highway to full assimilation. Generic one-size-fits-all content is that jungle trail no one wants to follow.

If you’re going to localize your content (and you should), it’s only right you choose a company with a track record of excellence.

Remember, any future revisions and corrections will cost you more than what you think you’re saving by hiring a cheap novice.