As apps are downloaded from anywhere in the world and websites be used from across the globe, globalization of a newer sort touches the software testing industry after crowdsource testing. Catering to a variety of audience, a diverse set of governments & their norms and varying user expectations is no mean feat.

Software Testing & QA Companies gear up to fulfill these requirements and a mature set of testing procedures become the need of the hour for testing these software to be used worldwide. Globalization testing, a comprehensive testing approach to ensure that the software executes in the same manner, irrespective of the locale or culture dependencies of the country it is availed from becomes the new norm in testing today along with automation testing adapting to the changing requirements.

 

 

Now Trending – Globalization Testing

Globalization testing is sometimes also referred to as internationalized testing; while some experts are of the opinion that localized and internationalized testing combine to form globalization testing. Globalization testing ensures that without any dependencies on regions or geographical parameters, the application performance & responses remain uniform.

This niche in testing investigates region specific possibilities for input parameters, to ensure that the product functionality is in sync with international requirements. With globalization testing, enterprises remain assured that there would not be any performance, display or data loss challenges when the application is availed from different sets of geographies. Some of the common aspects generally included as a part of globalization testing are date & time formatting, language & vocabulary, address, telephone numbers, zip code handling, currency formats and paper sizes at the time of printing.

In a millennial world when software become seamless across devices, they also defy geographical boundaries and have a global readiness with an idea of not to generalize, but to cater to all.

Globalization Vs Localization

With localization, the application or product is customized or translated for specific regions. Globalization or world readiness on the other hand is involved with design, implementation & testing of the product so that the final output is compatible and easy to localize for multiple regions and be compatible in all the parts of the world.

Globalization Testing Vs Localization testing

Best Practices for Globalization Testing

This new age testing approach offers multiple benefits when structured with best practices in mind by Software Testing & QA Companies.

• Comprehensive Testing of Features

The release of the software could be region specific and for testing purpose, certain features may require to be turned off or on depending upon locale context.

It is vital for the QA team to cover a comprehensive set of features applicable to all geographies with the correct selections for best in class product quality.

• User Interface & Usability Testing to Suit Different Countries

Globalization testing should essentially check user interface & usability challenges to keep focus on various users as the software is going to be used in an international market across multiple geographies & devices.

As an example, characters in specific European languages occupy more space in a text box as compared to English. Comment boxes, dialogs, buttons, labels & embedded text may get distorted if the application compatibility is not up to international benchmarks when the locale is changed.

• Storage Testing for Varying Infrastructure

Globalization testing incorporates file transactions & database testing to account for locale flavors scaled up to global implementations.

Nitty gritties like encoding standards need to be synced else it may lead to data mismatch or misinterpretation. The technology differences may deteriorate application compatibility and the input & output parameters.

• Avoid Cultural & Geographical Challenges

Cultural sensitivity is a critical factor to increase the acceptability, distribution & usage of a software, app or product. Insensitivity to feelings may lead to the fall in popularity in specific geographies.

Any type of slang or information promoting political controversies should be avoided under all circumstances. Similarly, developers need to avoid maps that indicate disputed boundaries and testing team needs to confirm the same.

• Ensure Reading Script Support

Other than routine testing covering international standards, it is vital to check if the supported scripts are also displayed in sync with linguistic variations.

The testing team should take into account these aspects to ensure complete internationalized testing happens.

The Growing Importance of Globalization Testing

As more & more enterprises attempt to project their products & services in the broader global market, the demand of globalization testing continues to increase. Prudent Software Testing & QA Companies research & foray into this new service area.

• Cost benefits

Globalization assists in keeping a tab on support & QA costs. This is of particular importance for organizations having limited scale of products yet looking for expansion.

The global releases of the products become relatively less expensive for the organizations as compared to geography wise releases in a segregated fashion.

• Improved Time Management

While globalization testing is complex, appropriate focus on international as well as locale based testing ensures that the Go -Market times are for new rollouts & releases as well as upgrades.

• Increased Scalability & Flexibility

Globalization testing that effectively incorporates localization factor does render an edge of scalability to the testing process, as well as makes the product more stable for future development.

• Sustainable Global Products

International visibility, popularity and acceptance are definitely higher for products that undergo appropriate globalization testing cycles backed by strong product qualities adhering to international benchmarks.

In a Nutshell

The concept of globalization testing proves to be in sync with the contemporary requirements for testing of products & apps to be launched simultaneously across the world. The last few years have seen strategies from Software Testing & QA Companies take advantages of cloud based models, allowing technologies like globalization be implemented more practically.

With mobile apps becoming indispensable and markets opening up to online economies, globalization testing gains its due importance. Enterprises prudently weigh the options between localization as well as internationalization when it comes to test plan design and chalk out more synergetic options.

The rise of newer testing models for DevOps, Agile, Continuous Integration & Automation influence the global testing strategies and this contemporary niche in testing is waiting to come of age.

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