Making the Master Course Translation-Friendly to Deliver Effective Safety Training
A Case Study on eLearning Translations for an Entertainment Company
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THE SUMMARY
The Challenge: Translate an eLearning course on Safety protocols to 18 languages in 2 months. Translated courses were to be compatible with desktops, laptops, and tablets.
CommLab India’s Solution: An agile development process – with Adobe Captivate – to simplify translation and localization. Checklists and thorough quality checks ensured accuracy. We steered clear of interactivities that don’t function optimally on iPads.
The Result: 54 domain translators, editors, and proofreaders were involved in the process that improved the learning experience of employees around the globe.
THE CLIENT
One of the world’s leading producers and providers of entertainment and information, our client is known for the most creative, innovative, and profitable entertainment experiences in the world.
The organization’s business segments include media networks, theme parks, experiences and consumer products, and more. Today, they have a total of approximately 200,000 employees around the globe with operations in more than 40 countries.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Our client wanted to train their theme park employees around the globe on the Ride Control System. They strongly believed that the safety of guests and cast members at their theme parks depended on how well their internal employees understood the Ride Control System (RCS).
Requirements
The client’s expectations for the course:
- Make the learning as engaging as possible to ensure learner participation
- Help learners retain all the knowledge necessary to ensure the safety of guests
- Allow learners access the course on desktops, laptops and tablets
- Provide a comfortable learning experience to global employees by delivering the course in their preferred languages
Challenges
The main challenges in developing the course:
- Translating the developed course into 18 different languages in a short span of 2 months
- Translating the content into languages with different visual and technical requirements (e.g. Arabic and Hebrew with right to left script)
THE SOLUTION
As we had to work simultaneously on multiple languages, we chose Adobe Captivate as the authoring tool as it enables efficient and easy translation and localization of content.
As always, we followed an agile development process and made sure that we were in constant communication with the client and the client’s in-country reviewers. We also developed a checklist to ensure we were on track on the deliverables up until the deadline. After each stage, we instituted robust quality processes for the translated texts.
Instructional Approach
We included different types of interactivities to make the course as engaging as possible, taking care not to add those interactivities that do not function optimally on iPads (e.g. rollovers).
Since we knew the master course was to be translated, we were careful to ensure:
- Enough white space on screen in the master course so that translated languages like Chinese would have enough space
- No text was placed over images as translating the text on these images into a different language would be an additional time-consuming task
- Idioms and colloquialisms were not used since translating these phrases while maintaining the exact meaning from the source language might not be possible for all languages
- The use of culturally neutral, globally acceptable avatars so that learners would not find the learning too foreign
A total of 54 domain translators, editors, and proofreaders were involved in the translation process.
For audio narration, we chose 18 male and 18 female professional narrators.
DELIVERABLES
Master Course
Translated Courses
GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE CASE
Developed a compliance course and translated it into 18 languages for the internal employees of a major entertainment conglomerate in the US
Execution Time: 2 Months
Deliverables
18 courses
In 18 languages
14 learning hours
Development Time: 960 hours
Device Compatibility
Desktop
iPad
Laptop
Team
1 Project Manager
2 Project Leads
10 Courseware Developers
20 Client Reviewers
36 Professional Narrators
54 Domain Translators, Editors,
Proofreaders
Success Mantra: Continuous communication with client in-country reviewers, development checklist, and domain expertise.
THE RESULTS
After the completion of the course, internal employees realized the importance of understanding the Ride Control System to ensure the safety of guests and cast members. Our client was extremely pleased with the course.
- We completed the development of the master course and the 18 translated courses in 2 months – on time!
- Learners could choose their preferred language from the 18 different languages. This improved the learning experience for employees around the globe, thereby contributing to knowledge retention and productivity.
- The use of various interactivities kept learners engaged throughout the course, resulting in higher course completion rates.
- Using Adobe Captivate, the course was made compatible with desktops, laptops, and tablets, which was a boon for employees learning in the field.
Rapid eLearning Solutions to Fast-Track Employee Learning
Train your learners anytime, anywhere, in any format, on any device!