Localization & Internationalization Testing

What is Localization?

Localization refers to the adaptation of a product, application or document content to meet the language, cultural and other requirements of a specific target market (a locale).

Localization is sometimes written as L10N, where 10 is the number of characters between 'l' and 'n'

What is Localization Testing?

Localization testing is testing process to validate whether application is capable enough for using in a particular location or country. 

It can be related to:

Numeric, date and time formats

Use of currency

Keyboard usage

Collation and sorting

Symbols, icons and colors

Text and graphics containing references to objects

What is Internationalization?

Internationalization is the design and development of a product, application that enables easy localization for target audiences that vary in culture, region, or language.

Internationalization is often written I18N, where 18 is the number of letters between i and n in the english word.

What is Internationalization Testing?

The goal of Internationalization testing is to find out all problems in software globalization. It makes sure that the code can handle internationalization without breaking functionality that would cause either wrong data, data loss or display problems. it checks proper functionality of the product with any of the locale settings using every type of international input possible. 

Designing and developing in a way that removes barriers to localization or international deployment. This includes such things as enabling the use of Unicode, or ensuring the proper handling of legacy character encodings where appropriate, taking care over the concatenation of strings, avoiding dependence in code of user-interface string values etc.

Enabling code to support local, regional, language, or culturally related preferences. Typically this involves incorporating predefined localization data and features derived from existing libraries or user preferences. Examples include date and time formats, local calendars, number formats and numeral systems, sorting and presentation of lists, handling of personal names and forms of address, etc.

Separating localizable elements from source code or content, such that localized alternatives can be loaded or selected based on the user's international preferences as needed.