Mastering Hidden Cultural Challenges in eLearning Localization

In taking eLearning to a foreign market, cultural differences can be just as tricky as translating the content into a new language. Some problems can hide in plain sight — obvious to locals, but invisible to outsiders.

With training programs, it's crucial to go beyond translation and take a detailed look at how local culture might affect the reception of your product. Localization for product training (such as a course on using a new software application) is likely to face few issues with the underlying content but still require good linguistic and technical adaptation. But for training in soft skills, such as management or sales techniques, attention to cultural norms related to the core premise and content might make the difference between success and failure. In either case, local nuances need to be considered to fully localize courses.

How do you tackle the challenge of adapting eLearning to a different cultural context? Here are a few tips.

1. Determine the kind and level of interaction you want with trainees. Some eLearning techniques rely heavily on multimedia such as videos, Flash animations or slideshows where viewers don't need to do much beyond press a button to see the next step. Other methods make trainees take a more active role in their own learning. For instance, an eLearning module could ask trainees to complete a series of tasks or take quizzes as they progress.

With each additional level of interactivity between user and product, more potential challenges arise. For example, some quiz formats or forms of feedback might be more familiar or acceptable than others. An American-made interactive test might give the trainee a "thumbs-up" to indicate a correct answer — but this seemingly innocuous signal could cause offense (or just lead to mockery) in parts of Africa, The Middle East, Latin America and Southern Europe. If features such as these aren't spotted early on, before the time-consuming task of multimedia translation (which may also involve overdubbing and transcription), then the interactive test may require changes late in process — adding to your timeline and budget.

2. Get your cultural norms straight. This aspect of eLearning can be hard to vet and raise problems that are difficult to anticipate. What seems to be "common sense" in one country can be just the opposite in others.

A failure to account for everyday norms in your target market can have an outsized impact. In 2010, The Wall Street Journal reported that a producer of online driver training courses had expanded into 20 countries before realizing its ambitious rollout had major problems with localization. In the end, it had to shell out around $1 million to correct these mistakes.

Besides poor translation, a lack of attention to cultural nuances helped to undermine the effectiveness of the company's product. For instance, the aforementioned online training course taught drivers that the center lane on a multi-lane highway is the safest. But that advice proved to be completely incorrect in Dubai, where the center lane is used only for passing, and is problematic for Western European countries that enforce similar rules. The firm could have saved itself time and money if it had realized how crucial such details were to its overseas expansion.

3. Seek out expert knowledge. You may need to tap into expert knowledge before even handing over your content for translation and localization. For instance, you don't want a course on managing employees or conducting employment interviews to give information that contradicts local labor laws. (By the same token, some interview questions that are illegal in the United States might be fine in other markets.) Similarly, a course on how to manage annual reviews may work better if it takes local management styles or attitudes toward criticism into account. In this case, a human resources expert with in-country experience might be able to recommend adjustments.

In short, never assume that all the content of your original eLearning course is universally acceptable or valid. The safe bet is to have subject-matter experts versed in the local culture vet your products in each target market.

4. Conduct a separate content review for each target market. Even markets that share the same language require individual treatment. For example, if you are localizing your eLearning course into Spanish for Mexico, Spain and Argentina, you may need to get local input from each country. Even next-door neighbors such as Venezuela and Ecuador may have cultural differences that call for tailored localization.

If the initial review phase produces different recommendations for different markets, you have two choices: you can either rework the copy of your English course to make it more universal (this will probably be less expensive in the end), or develop separate solutions for each local market. By identifying areas that need truly local variations, you can customize critical information to a market while leveraging the majority of the translation across markets. The ideal solution for you will depend on the nature of your training program — ask your translation partner for input if you are unsure.

Of course, training products vary tremendously in subject matter, scope and complexity. Contact Acclaro today to learn how we can help you localize your training and eLearning content. And, read our top ten tips on training and eLearning localization.