A significant number of software applications today are web-based. The user interface strings are held in properties files. Properties files, unlike resource files, for example, do not provide much context or screen layout information. In many cases, this leaves translators guessing as to what might be the most appropriate translation for a particular term. In some cases, such guess work can lead to as many as 20 – 30% mistranslations and layout issues leading to hours of rework and regression.
KEYWORDS: Translation, In-context translation, properties files, web-based applications, linguistic quality assurance, LQA