RWS Moravia’s Top 10 Blog Posts of 2018

What a year it’s been for RWS Moravia! Between all the excitement of joining RWS, co-publishing 26 episodes of the Globally Speaking podcast, and sponsoring events in Beijing, Singapore and other countries around the world, we had a lot of fun on the blog—exploring all kinds of ideas, from preserving languages of the past to training localizers of the future. This month was a great time to reflect and share what we learned with our peers.

As part of that, we’ve rounded up the 10 blog posts you liked most in 2018. One thing is for sure: UX design for Asia is still a hot topic. As you plan for the rest of 2019, we hope you find our insights on this and the following localization trends useful.

Enjoy!

1. 9 Strong Female Voices in the Localization Industry

In light of International Women’s Day 2018, we were honored to recognize nine of our industry’s most influential women and their amazing contributions to their communities. This list of loc veterans is by no means exhaustive but packs a ton of girl power.

2. What Japanese Users Are Looking for in Website Design

Cluttered design is a cultural thing in Japan, argued Doug McGowan in one of our most popular blog posts ever, Why Japanese Web Design Is (Still) the Way It Is. In this follow-up post, he sniffs out more insights into the user preferences behind Japanese UX and tips on how to accommodate them.

3. Does an Emoji Mean the Same Thing Around the World?

The face with tears of joy—the most-used emoji in the US—is just one that’s interpreted negatively in other cultures. In this blog post, we set the record straight: when is it OK (and not OK) to use emojis in global marketing?

4. 11 Tips for B2B Social Marketing

75% of B2B buyers use social media as a key part of their decision-making process. If you don’t already have a plan for building relationships with these buyers, here are 11 things to consider as you formulate it, starting with putting your strategy in the right people’s hands.

5. Tools and Translators: Interview with Jost Zetzsche

Readers of Jost’s latest book, Translation Matters, won’t want to miss this. We got the chance to chat with him about a few ideas from the book, including the job landscape for translators and what will happen if machines do get smarter than humans.

6. Eight Great TED Talks About Language

Here, you can check out some of our favorite TED talks about language, from experts like cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky, linguistics professor John McWhorter and Wordnik.com founder Erin McKean.

7. Interview with an Expert Transcreator

You’ve heard of transcreation as an effective way to embed your brand in new markets. But why does it cost so much? Our Senior Content Marketing Manager Lee Densmer spoke to an expert to get answers to this and other questions. Check out the conversation—there’s a bonus transcreation checklist in it for you.

8. How Localization at Box Fuels International Revenue

For Hanna Kanabiajeuskaja, Product Manager at cloud content management company Box, localization should follow a data-driven model to generate the best results. And she should know—she’s the one who transformed her team from a small-scale support function to a key driver of Box’s international growth. We sat down with Hanna to hear exactly how she did it.

9. The Truth About Chinese Website UX

The complexity of Chinese websites is more logical than you think. This post compares the UX we expect in the US to the busier nature of Chinese design and explores how to use the latter to your advantage.

10. Eight of the Most Bizarre Machine Translation Fails of 2018

Remember the Google Translate glitch that rendered repeated entries of the word “dog” into an ominous doomsday prophecy? In this post, we rounded up a few more AI-powered mistranslations that made headlines in 2018—some of them hilarious, others just plain bizarre.

So there you have it: our top 10 most popular blog posts of 2018. A huge thank you to everyone who read, shared and contributed to the RWS Moravia blog in 2018—we look forward to exploring more ideas with you this year.

What kinds of topics do you want to see the industry talk more (or less) about in the coming months? Our pens are at the ready! Drop your ideas in the comments below.