LISA Forum Europe

Do you want to reach more people and generate more orders with a multilingual Web site? Do you want to help your customers set up their own multilingual Web site in a manner that will make localization easier? Do you want to increase your expertise in the quickly growing field of Web globalization? This workshop addresses all the issues involved in building a multilingual Web site using XML-based technologies.

We first discuss why businesses should globalize their Web sites and why both customers and vendors will often encounter surprising complexities in the process. In particular, the seemingly simple issue of handing off the Web site content to localizers is shown to be quite complex and full of pitfalls.

The basic concepts of multilingual information processing (language, script, locale, country, encoding, etc.) are defined and their impact on requirements and architecture is discussed. The language-related features of the fundamental Web technologies (HTTP, XML, (X)HTML, CSS, XSL, domain names and URIs) are presented. You will learn how to apply these features to the design of both static ("brochureware") and transactional Web sites.

We then start designing our demo multilingual Web site, which will become a fully functional internationalized Web site as the workshop evolves. We consider all steps in the process, from requirements to customer support with special emphasis on architecture and development. Common pitfalls are highlighted.

Architecture-wise we consider how to define your domains, how to organize your files, how to modify your database schema and the ever important issue of language navigation: to ensure your Web users find the pages available in their language and that your translation investment is not wasted.

Development issues are also presented: authoring issues, multilingual forms and how to retrieve multilingual data from them, code internationalization, selection of encoding, foreign language text entry, language identification, fonts and language-dependent stylesheets (CSS, XSLT, XSL-FO), etc.

The tutorial wraps up by addressing localization topics: connecting customer and vendor, localizable document types, cultural issues, localization testing. This is completed by a brief overview of Globalization Management Systems: systems designed precisely for the purpose of automating Web localization workflow.

Who will benefit from this workshop and why?

Who:	Interested in...
Translation Agencies Translators Localization Engineers	Your customers expect you to have expertise in translating and adapting Web pages to other languages and cultures How to organize the Web site hand-off to avoid problems How to modify XML pages and style sheets for multilingual support How to help your customers improve their deliverables to provide them with better results at a better cost
Development Managers Web Developers Web Designers Web Masters	Organize your multilingual Web development effort How to internationalize your code How to define and organize your files and style sheets How to provide the proper language to the user How to deal with language & character set information Ensure consistency in the language approach Understand globalization workflow
Executives International Directors Localization Managers	The successful deployment of multilingual web sites can be critical to your business success; in E-Commerce, it IS your business Standards & industry best practices for multilingual Web sites An overall view of language issues for the Web The role and value of Web Globalization Management Systems (GMS).
Documentation Content Managers	How to reduce Web translation costs Creation of international style sheets
Test Managers Testers	Understand how multilingual web sites work What standards exist What are the risk areas What can go wrong

About i18N workshops

At i18N Inc., we are committed to providing a high-quality learning experience. We design all of our workshops based on the following principles:

visual & intuitive: tables, graphics, animation & video provide extreme clarity
lots of content: rich, relevant content; our handouts can serve as reference
abstract models: we consider the forest first, then the trees (then the bugs!)
no sales pitch: our only sales pitch is the quality of our workshops

"Over the past ten years, LISA has provided numerous workshops on a variety of topics. Pierre has provided the highest quality Internationalization, and Web-Globalization workshops at our conferences and is the best rated workshop instructor we have" -- Michael Anobile, Director, LISA (www.lisa.org).

About Pierre Cadieux

Pierre Cadieux is technology editor for the LISA newsletter and the president of i18N Inc. (www.i18n.ca), a firm specializing in internationalization training and consulting. Pierre has over twenty years experience in the industry; his globalization experience covers embedded systems, shrink-wrap software and Web sites.

Formerly VP Technology at Alis Technologies Inc., he pioneered the transparent handling of Arabic and Hebrew languages and created the core bi-directional technology licensed by Microsoft. At Alis, he designed the internationalization strategy for all products, including the TANGO multilingual Web browser. He has sat on CSA and ISO committees on character sets and multilingual data coding.

As Director of Localization Technology at Bowne Global Solutions, he carried out research and analysis on multilingual Web sites and published the first generic model of Globalization Management Systems.

As a freelance consultant, Pierre is often sought after to consult and to train on these issues as well as traditional software internationalization. He can be reached at pcadieux@i18n.ca.

This program is developed by i18N Inc.

Localization Standards Industry Association