Siliconcoach, Dunedin, New Zealand                   

• Customer overview;
  • Dunedin based Siliconcoach is making a significant impact in the world of sport, education, clinical practice and sports retail. Siliconcoach’s software is designed to improve understanding of human movement – to analyse technique, enhance performance, and reduce the risk of injury.
     
• Business challenge; 
  • Siliconcoach have developed Dialed in Motion, a dynamic shoe fitting system which takes their athletics training motion analysis software into the retail environment. Specifically, it helps the shop assistant analyse how people run to determine the optimum fitting of running shoes.
    
    Siliconcoach required a Chinese localized version of their software and user instructions to support their sales in China. The software was written using the .net framework, a file format which is not widely supported by the translation industry in New Zealand.
     
• Solution description:
  • Blue South proposed that the software strings could be handled directly using their Catalyst software localization tool, whilst the manual would be best processed using SDL Trados, a translation memory tool.
    
    For the Dialed in Motion files, Catalyst has the advantage of providing the strings to the translator in context order and showing the character count for the English source string.
    
    A glossary would be created when translating the strings which would then be applied to the translation of the manual to enhance consistent use of terminology.
     
• Implementation process;

  • Blue South used one of their approved translators based in China who is a specialist for software localization. Being located in China and immersed in the culture, this translator understands the current terminology used for such applications.

    The software strings were initially translated, proof read by another linguist and supplied to Siliconcoach for approval. Once approved, a glossary was created and applied via SDL Trados to the translation of the manual. After proof reading by another linguist, the translated manual was supplied to the client for approval. In both cases, Siliconcoach’s contacts in China undertook the review and any feedback was reconciled by Blue South.
     

• Results;
  • Translating the strings using Catalyst allowed Siliconcoach  to upload the localized .resx files directly to their application. And as a translation memory has been created, the existing translation can be efficiently re-used for future updates.
    
    Similarly, for the manual, a translation memory exists to enable fast and efficient future updates/derivatives.
     
• Coment from Steve Goodlass, Software Developer, Siliconcoach;
  • "We found working with Blue South a refreshing experience. They guided us through the process, helped us do a bit of prototyping to “prove” the process. Their process was clear, efficiently executed, timely and really quite reasonably priced. We would certainly recommend Blue South.
    
    We’d used our own system previously and in the past we’ve done translation using colleagues. For written language it made so much sense to use a service in-county, and from the proofing process it was clear the translation quality was excellent.
    
    Once we started the project it was very fluid and Blue South were really on the ball. We got used to getting responses to emails within minutes never mind the same day!
    
    They were able to supply answers to our queries without us finding them ourselves and as a result the project was completed at a great pace.
    
    To put it simply, Blue South over-achieved and we had the material well within the 21-day deadline.” 
     

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Siliconcoach