Translation and Localization Quality Assurance Checklist

Source Document

• What is the source language? (e.g. English)
• What is the source locale? (e.g. British English, American English)
• Is controlled language used? If so, supply your vendor with the rules.
• What is the subject field and sub field if any (e.g. energy, medicine, law)
• What is the document type? (e.g. article, letter, manual, contract)

• What is the format? (e.g. electronic, hardcopy, MS Word, HTML, QuarkXPress)
• What character set and encoding are used?
• Are there graphics included. If so, is the text within them extractable?

Background Information

•Are reference materials, support documents, or surrounding documents available? If so, supply your vendor with these items.
• Is a sample of the product referenced in the source document or screenshots or photos of the same available? If so, supply your vendor with these items.

• Are there parallel texts available in the source language? (e.g. company literature) If so, supply your vendor with these texts.
• Are there parallel texts available in the target language? If so, supply your vendor with these texts.

Target Audience

• Who is the target audience? (including education and socioeconomic background)
• What is the target locale (e.g. French for Belgium, not just French)
• What is the purpose of the translation? (e.g. to inform, to persuade, to bind legally)

• Do you require back translation? (retranslation of translated text back into its source language)
• Should currency, date and time formats, units of measure, and names be retained or replaced with cultural equivalents? (e.g. John to Jean, Dollars to Francs)

Target Document

• What is your preferred text delivery medium? (e.g. hardcopy, electronic)
• How should graphic text be handled?
• Are desktop publishing or other ancillary services needed?

Procedures

• What work location requirements do you have, if any? (e.g. onsite, offsite, Stateside)
• What will be your level of participation throughout the project?
• What communication methods will be used? (including time zones and work hours)
• Will there be a third party review? If so, by whom and when?

• Are there any other procedural issues to be considered?
• Are specific translation tools to be used (e.g. machine translation, translation memory lookup, terminology lookup, terminology consistency checking). If so, specify these to your vendor.
• Will there be an in-country review? If so, what are the parameters for reviewer comments?
• Will there be a formal quality control method applied? If so, provide your vendor with the metric and method of application.
• How will comments be implemented?

Terminology

• Are there glossaries to be used? If so, supply your vendor with these glossaries.
• Are there bilingual and multilingual terminology databases and translation memory databases to be used? If so, supply your vendor with these databases.
• Have you established a terminology development process? (consider industry standard terminology databases, organization-specific terminology databases, and project-specific terminology databases)
• What is the relative priority to be given to each terminology database in case of conflicting terminology?
• How should discrepancies between terminology databases and translation memory databases be handled?

Timing

• What is your timeline for the project?
• What is your deadline for the project?
• What are your provisions for adjusting the timeline or deadline?

Deliverables

• What are the final deliverables? (list them)

• Are translation memory databases part of the deliverables? If so, who retains ownership of these databases?
• Are translation memory databases part of the deliverables? If so, specify them in your work order, purchase order, or otherwise as work for hire.
• Do you require any ancillary services? (e.g. desktop publishing)

Legal and Ethical Issues

• Is certification required?

• Are there any copyright or confidentiality issues?
• Are there any liability issues?
• Are there any potential conflicts of interest?
• Who owns the translation components? (e.g. source text, target text, translation memory databases)

Compensation

• How will the translation be billed? (e.g. per character, per word, per line, per page, per hour)

• How is the billing unit defined (e.g. if per word, what constitutes a word)
• What word count method will be applied?
• What are your payment terms?
• Will the translator, editor or any other member of the translation team be named on the product?

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