Where the devil really is in the detail

In this age of technology and innovation, new complex products are hitting the shelves all the time – and they all need to be accompanied by detailed explanations covering their use and maintenance. User manuals are the first place that the buyer will go when they are setting up a new product or encountering problems during their use of any purchase, and the documentation needs to be concise, clear and highly accurate. If there is a solution to the user’s question available within the pages of that manual, then it is imperative that it is quickly and easily found and understood.

Users will quickly become frustrated if they cannot find the answers to questions and the solutions to problems easily, and we know that the design and clarity of instructions and help pages is another vital element of customer engagement and loyalty. If your customers find it easy to locate and understand the information they want on your products, it will encourage them to turn to your company when they are ready to upgrade or buy again. We all know that great user experiences help companies to upsell and cross-sell to their customer base, and product user manuals and quick-start guides are all part of this experience.

We are experienced with the full spectrum user manual and handbook translations, from the single-language localisation of short company messages through to large multilingual projects. Our translators are chosen for their subject matter knowledge and ability to get your message across effectively, whether you want to educate customers or send a clear internal company message to your employees.

Digital user interfaces run into the same common problems and the same solutions can be applied. They must be simple, functional, intuitive and easy to understand; and when they are made available to international users, translation and localisation again becomes an integral part of their successful design.

Localising a digital user interface requires a translation team with vision as well as technical and design expertise. While the practical considerations of any translation team localising user interfaces must be character counts and width restrictions, our in-country translation teams ensure that localised buttons and instruction text supplies the linguistic and cultural needs of target markets.

Want to find out more? Give us a call today to discuss localisation and transcreation for UI and user manuals.