🚀 go-pugleaf

It looks like you are running into two major problems.  The
localization process for medical software is more difficult, because of
the required accuracy (thus increasing the cost) and the base
system/software is badly enabled.  If you are constrained by the badly
enabled base system (fixed font sizes, etc) than you have a very
difficult job.  What about the far east languages? The small fonts that
are often used for the Latin based characters are often unreadable for
Kanji (Hanja, etc).

When you need to meet specific specs set up by outside agencies it will
add a huge amount to your effort.  Look at the effort for NT to meet
government security specs.

The above is not very useful, other than an acknowledgment that there
are exceptions to the little impact statement.  Also, I would say
"little impact" with a grain of salt.  After a company "aquires
international expertise" the impact is low "when compared to the total
resources devoted to the project."  This could still involve 50 full
time people for a large company and a large project.

Stan
----------
From: Don Fox  <netmail!dfox@netcom.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list  <insoft-l@cis.vutbr.cs>
Subject: Internationalization of Medical Devices
Date: Friday, July 09, 1993 6:44PM

I would like to know how many people have experience with internationalizing
software for medical devices.  I have worked on a couple of different
devices in the past and am currently working on yet another that will
become internationalized.

A couple of people have mentioned that there has been little impact w.r.t.
internationalizing their product.  In the medical field, things are quite
different.  Software must be tested for all messages in all languages.
Of particular importance are the error messages that occur in the system.
The governing agencies for the medical devices (FDA, TUV, ISO 900x, ...)
have specific language requirements for product approval.

In addition, the translations for medical terminology are rarely accurate,
at least for me.  (I admit that one could argue unfavorably about the
experience level of our "translation experts", however, it still
requires time to setup and verify.)  Also, all of the systems that I have
worked with have had fixed font sizes.  This means that errors and messages
that fit nicely on the screen in English may not fit at all in German.

I would be interested in hearing from others with similar experience.
--
Don Fox					Internet: dfox@netcom.com