Localization at Trustpilot: Where UX Meets Translation

Ida Giersing is Head of Localization and Copywriting at Trustpilot, the online customer review platform that seeks to become a universal symbol of trust by bringing businesses and consumers together under the tagline Behind every review is an experience that matters.

In this blog, Ida talks about a third culture kid finding a home in localization, UX writing and localization under the same roof, and how to apply technology in the service of language.

Home for a Global Nomad

A true third culture kid, Ida was born in Denmark but spent her formative years in France, Nepal, and the US, returning to Denmark to study before an MA in International Journalism in the UK, and finally settling down in Copenhagen.

“Google was my first proper introduction to localization and language technology, and I quickly felt at home in the tech industry, surrounded by people who had also lived all over the place and who spoke different languages.”

Ida’s global upbringing has shaped who she is today, from the very French existence of her early years to the cultural melting pots of the American School in Kathmandu and the United Nations International School in New York.

“I’ve lived all over the place, and although I never actively planned to work with languages, I somehow found myself in a field that tries to enable communication across the world,” muses Ida.

From the Communication department at H&M, Ida’s early career took her to Google, the mothership of all tech companies, where she owned the quality of Google’s voice as the Danish Language Specialist.

“Google was my first proper introduction to localization and language technology, and I quickly felt at home in the tech industry, surrounded by people who had also lived all over the place and who spoke different languages.”

“Trustpilot was an offer I couldn’t refuse. It was localization, it was tech, it was a company with a mission I could stand behind, it was in Denmark, and it gave me the opportunity to manage a great team.”

After four years at Google, Ida wandered around languages, localization and translation, first at the University of Copenhagen and later at Visma, an ERP software company, before being headhunted to Trustpilot.

“Trustpilot was an offer I couldn’t refuse. It was localization, it was tech, it was a company with a mission I could stand behind, it was in Denmark, and it gave me the opportunity to manage a great team,” Ida summarizes.

Localization and UX Writing Under the Same Roof

Everyone’s online and everyone’s looking to trust the companies they interact with – that’s where Trustpilot is trying to bring more trust to the internet. And localization plays a huge role in that – because you can’t become a universal symbol of trust without being a local symbol of trust in the markets where you operate.

“What’s special and super positive with our team is that it incorporates both localization and UX writing, so we also have UX writers in our team and we manage both processes.”

In the past few years, Trustpilot has grown from a start-up to a scale-up to a company that recently floated on the London Stock Exchange, and its localization team is taking the necessary steps to adapt to that growth while staying focused on quality and user experience.

“Sometimes, our team is referred to as the ‘translation team’ – but I see localization as so much more than translation. We need to bring attention to how good user experience may mean different things in different markets – merely translating content can never be enough. Creating a link between UX writing and research is part of that.”

“What’s special and super positive with our team is that it incorporates both localization and UX writing, so we also have UX writers in our team and we manage both processes,” explains Ida.

User experience (UX) design is about developing products that provide meaningful experiences to users, and UX writing specifically is about ensuring the words on the screen contribute positively to the user experience. The close collaboration between localization and UX writing provides opportunities to share insights and ensure that the people localizing the UI are close to those who wrote the source copy. This is something that’s still unusual in the localization space.

“Like most things related to language, localization is often an underdog, something that’s taken for granted. Sometimes, our team is referred to as the ‘translation team’ – but I see localization as so much more than translation. We need to bring attention to how good user experience may mean different things in different markets – merely translating content can never be enough. Creating a link between UX writing and research is part of that. Perhaps one day we’ll be testing copy in all our markets instead of relying on research from English-speaking markets to define the content for all markets.”

Language Managers as Gatekeepers

Ida’s team is centralized, working for internal stakeholders at Trustpilot, localizing everything from product UI to support content, and from marketing material to legal content.

Trustpilot’s business product is localized into its seven main languages. The consumer side has a wider language selection, allowing consumers from all over the globe to read and write reviews on a localized platform.

The team’s main languages are owned by internal Language Managers working closely with the local market, localization project coordinators, freelance translators and an LSP to produce the best possible output for a rapidly increasing volume of content.

“Growing volumes are a challenge, and the Language Managers’ roles are changing with evolving workflows and processes, focusing on maintaining a helicopter view of everything that’s going on in their language and market more than on individual localization projects.”

The team’s Language Managers are the gatekeepers of quality. They have their hands on high visibility content and work closely with external translators as well as with Trustpilot’s regional marketers and other market-specific stakeholders to ensure Trustpilot sounds just right in their market.

“Overall, their job is to ensure quality and consistency in an environment where they don’t have the capacity to see all content. Growing volumes are a challenge, and the Language Managers’ roles are changing with evolving workflows and processes, focusing on maintaining a helicopter view of everything that’s going on in their language and market more than on individual localization projects,” says Ida.

In a company scaling up, structuring and streamlining the localization process is a priority.

How Technology Supports Language

Crowdin is Trustpilot’s sole CAT tool, used to manage all our localization activities. Although Crowdin was first used only for the translation of UI and support content, it’s now increasingly also used for marketing and more creative content.

At Trustpilot, Crowdin is integrated with GitHub for UI strings, and all support content flows automatically between Crowdin and Zendesk.

“We have to be well-oiled and agile, but we also have to keep our focus on quality, on sounding human, and on creating great content for the teams around us.”

“The integrations with GitHub and Zendesk work very well, and we’re in the process of finding the best solutions in terms of automation, integration, and machine translation, hopefully bringing more content into Crowdin. With the growth Trustpilot is currently undergoing, the amount of content is also increasing, so our localization setup needs to scale as well – and Crowdin will be a big part of that,” says Ida.

For Ida and her team, technology supports language: “We have to be well-oiled and agile, but we also have to keep our focus on quality, on sounding human, and on creating great content for the teams around us.”

One of the conversations going on in the localization team is about how to harness the value that language technology can add to localization.

“For some content, machine translation can get you 90% of the way to a good translation, while for other content, it’s useless. It’s crucial to define which is which. And then to talk about whether those last 10% are adding more value than for example A/B testing copy for an email campaign to increase the open rate, or improving the quality of high visibility content by getting linguistic feedback from users. Those discussions are hopefully going to help us discover where the localization team can add tangible value,” explains Ida.

Localization is a Continuous Process

As the company grows, localization needs to grow with it, but sustainably.

“As we grow, we need to be more agile and get comfortable with increased volumes. To do that successfully, we need to make sure our project management processes are as smooth as possible while our linguistic processes continue to revolve around quality and user experience.”

In Trustpilot’s localization team, Ida’s ethos is about trying things and seeing what works – finding the best solutions together and embracing technology without sacrificing quality.

“Language is fluid and language is emotion, language is a lot more than words on a screen. As we grow, we need to be more agile and get comfortable with increased volumes. To do that successfully, we need to make sure our project management processes are as smooth as possible while our linguistic processes continue to revolve around quality and user experience. ”

“Working with localization is about having a feel for your language, your market and your product.”

“We also need to continue developing how we work with quality. As we grow, quality cannot depend on one Language Manager or on one preferred translator – so we need to put in place structures that can ensure quality even when the same two eyes don’t see all the content. That’s about clean TMs, good glossaries, updated style guides, continuous feedback loops, in context linguistic review and perhaps above all, regular communication between the Language Manager and translators.”

“We want to get smarter and more structured about how we work without becoming so much a machine that we forget the power of language. Language is about being human and about sentiment. Working with localization is about having a feel for your language, your market and your product,” Ida concludes.