Welcome to Microsoft's Terminology Community Forum Blog
Welcome to the Microsoft Terminology Community Forum blog! My name is Britta Simon, I have been working at Microsoft Corporation for about eight years. I have worked in a variety of areas focusing on terminology management, natural language processing, and program development. My team is currently working on a project designed to get terminology feedback from customers who use localized Microsoft products. Working title of project is "Microsoft Terminology Community Forum" (MTCF). Goal of the forum is to enable local communities to directly influence and impact the language quality of the products they use.
On occasion, Microsoft has received feedback that some terms used in the interface differ from those commonly used in the local language. This may occur when the technical glossary of that language is still in development, or when languages evolve over time. Using terminology that closely reflects the local culture is an important goal for us. We welcome your opinion when we localize our products and we are looking forward to receiving your input on our terminology
The importance of language quality is often underestimated. I consider language quality not a cosmetic "nice to have" but an intrinsic element necessary for overall usability. Microsoft ships localized products in numerous markets. I believe that your input will greatly enhance the quality of our localized products and the user experience.
My goal is to create a forum for you to engage with us and other users of localized products to discuss terminology used in Microsoft products.
Here is the link to the project site: http://members.microsoft.com/wincg/mtcf_default.aspx. In the past, we had Arabic, Chinese (simplified and traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish and Russian community forums. We currently do not have any open terminology community projects but this will change in a couple of weeks. I will use this blog to announce terminology community projects as they are kicked off.
In the meantime, please send me your feedback/thoughts on this. I am looking forward to hearing from you!
Britta
