Quality Matters
Overview of Appropriate Translation QA Process

Ensuring That You Say What You Mean
Once you’ve spent the time and resources necessary to ensure that a document truly communicates as intended, you shouldn’t have to worry that the translated version might not be as effective as the original. Whether it’s a marketing document that’s meant to sell membership and services to your healthcare organization or individual responses to inquiries from your customers, the right translation involves more than just getting the language right. Taking care of the other elements of a translation is what Quality Assurance Services are all about.

Quality Assurance is different from just proofreading or editing. While QA can incorporate linguistic corrections and edits, the whole scope of the QA process can be much more complex than that. The purpose of QA is to make sure that document matches the source file in format and style, both in terms of language and in layout and design.

The Appropriate Level of QA
The complexity of documents, both in content and format, can vary according to their final purpose. For example, Word documents can be relatively simple, straightforward letters or reports, while using InDesign or Powerpoint implies a more complex design and perhaps will be more customer facing than other documents.

Depending on the requirements of the translation—and how the translated document will be used—there are various levels of quality assurance that can be applied to your project. Documents or notices meant to be sent out to individual members, for example, might not require the same level of quality assurance that a larger customer-facing translation might. An information packet of material about your healthcare services and related pricing charts along with informational brochures, however, will need a higher level of quality assurance attention to ensure that it accurately represents your services, their features and your brand. A document like this might include graphics, multiple type styles, and tabular information with services and pricing, so this type of document would require a trained eye to be able to maintain the same communication standards built into the original version. This is a level of quality assurance over and above the level that the combination of Translator, Proofreader and Project Manager could apply to the standard translation process.

Proofreading & Standard-Level QA
Proofreading & Standard-level quality assurance is included in every translation job by an LSP. This translation, editing, and proofreading process includes quality assurance check points that are primarily related to language standards and minor formatting inconsistencies. These include evaluation and correction of vocabulary, sentence structure, use of tense, grammar, and more. Other potential issues such as inconsistencies in writing style, the use of terminology, and completeness are also addressed, however the quality assurance check points performed at this level are concerned primarily with the translation’s accuracy. Although the combination of Translator, Proofreader and Project Manager will catch errors such as the completeness of the translation, detailed formatting checks related to complex layout and design issues aren’t addressed in this level of quality assurance. These are, instead, addressed in Extended-Level quality assurance.

Typical Issues Addressed in Proofreading & Standard-Level Quality Assurance
Accuracy: Mistranslations, spelling & punctuation, vocabulary, numbers & symbols.
Consistency: Sentence structure, clarity/style/literacy level, conventions, tense.
Completeness: Entire text is translated, all content is present, free of editor marks.

Extended-Level QA
The presentation elements of a source document, such as the layout and design, the use of fonts, and style treatments all play an important role in how well a document communicates. In addition, functional elements such as indexing, cross referencing and the proper placement of headers and footers affect the document’s functionality and usability. In the course of translating a source document into a different language, some of those elements inevitably get altered. For instance, word length varies from language to language, a different character set may have been applied or the translated document might now have to read from right-to-left or from top-to-bottom.

Your LSP should offer an additional level of quality assurance designed to address quality issues through a set of checkpoints beyond those included in Standard-Level Quality Assurance. This level of quality assurance looks for errors that the typical translating, editing and proofreading would not address. This quality assurance process focuses on formatting issues and the functionality of the translated document. Any customer-facing translation requires this level of quality assurance to ensure that those elements that make the source document not only visually appealing but functional as well, are also carried through to the translated version. This level of quality assurance requires an additional set of skills beyond the translation team. Another set of quality assurance skills related to a more-detailed and well trained eye is applied to the translation, for comparing the finished translation to the original source document. It also may require an understanding of the application in which the document was built, as well as the desktop publishing skills to correct for subtle formatting and design issues that may have occurred as a result of the translation.

Typical Issues Addressed in This Level of QA
Placement: Related graphics/callouts/captions, headers and footers, logical page breaks.
Formatting: Text and associated graphics, complex tables/charts, text styles, embedded items.
Functionality: Hyperlinks/forms/auto-fields, Table of Contents, Index, paragraph & line numbering, cross references, functionality within specific file types.

For customer facing documents especially, the Extended Level of QA can be essential. The additional cost for this higher level of QA is usually worth the peace of mind a client can get from knowing that every possible element was checked for design compatibility and functionality before being sent out to face potential or existing customers.