Developing International Software, Part 2

Creating software that works—as is—for people around the world requires thoughtful design.

People speak different languages and the countries they live in standardize on different currencies, date formats—even envelope sizes. Colors have different symbolism depending on cultural norms. And to accommodate all these differences, you want to do everything you possibly can to avoid the colossal effort of redesigning and rebuilding a different edition of your software for each and every market.

This computer science course focuses on two aspects of “world-ready” design. The first is globalization: making the user experience and the code that implements it generic enough to accommodate most market differences. The second aspect is localization: customizing features for the local market. The more globalized your design, the easier it is to localize.

The course instructors include designers and programmers who have worked on globalization and localization of some of the world’s most successful software. They’ve experienced the good, the bad, and the ugly of creating world-ready software, and they’re here to ensure your software’s user experience is one all your customers will enjoy, regardless of where they’re from or what language they speak.

Previous programming or User Experience design experience is always helpful, but not necessary for this course. Completion of “Developing International Software” is also helpful, but not essential.