Testing & QA

Experience
Our many years’ experience in localization means we have a thorough understanding of the processes involved in the QA and testing of localized documentation and software. We apply well-defined procedures, supported by tried-and-tested methodologies. Our team of multilingual software experts knows exactly what to look for, and where.
We are able to reproduce a test environment for Chinese, Japanese and Korean projects for all software and games platforms (including Mac, Windows, Unix, Lotus Notes). This allows us to perform the entire CJK localization process, including functional and linguistic QA in-house, with linguists on hand to provide input if necessary.

Different types of QA
There are three main areas to focus on for QA:
• layout
• language
• functionality.

A large area of our Cambridge office is dedicated to managing client- specific QA/testing requirements on a large or small scale. Documentation projects usually require QA of language and layout, and software and multimedia projects are checked for language and functionality. Our multilingual QA team can often carry out these checks simultaneously.

Procedures
In all cases, checking is carried out according to rigorous criteria. For layout, the QA team checks according to detailed DTP guidelines, including any client-specific instructions. The linguistic QA involves the use of a checklist to ensure that localization teams have referred to localization kit instructions and glossaries, as well as an overall grammar, spelling and style check. For a functional check on software or multimedia projects, a test plan is either drawn up by us or provided by the client, and all checking follows this plan. Bugs are written up in a database, which is then passed
on to the Engineers for bug fixing.

Tools
For some projects it can be appropriate to use tools to automate part of the testing process. We use a combination of in-house proprietary tools and industry-standard tools. These include Robohelp for help projects, Teamstudio for Notes and HTMLQA for HTML projects. The combination of automated and manual testing gives maximum efficiency and accuracy to the QA process.

Finalising a project
Some clients ask us to do all testing and bug fixing, while others may want to do some of the testing or bug fixing themselves. Alpha’s commitment ensures that software is tested and fixed as many times as it takes to produce the Gold Master. If the client is involved in the process, we liaise with them to make sure all testing and fixing is carried out according to their specifications. If clients prefer, we are also able to supply QA testers and linguists to work on-site at their premises.