Scaling up a Translation Interface

Most of Liferay’s customers support at least 2 languages, and some with large, public-facing websites often have a dozen or more languages.

While technically possible, translating at this scale requires a lot of error-prone manual work.

As the team’s Product Designer, I worked with the Technical lead and PM to do end-to-end product design. From interviewing users to implementation QA.

Through a design sprint, I helped the team ideate to a largely non-interface solution would provide the most value to our customers.

We achieved this in three ways:

Adding more granular permissions and dedicated roles for translators

Adding .xlf import/export features to the existing content editing interface

Exposing an API and providing endpoints for integration with translation services

I conducted interviews with three user groups to better understand how people used the existing features:

End-users: Direct feedback from customers and internal teams focused on goals, processes, and pain points.

Customer Support: Gathered indirect user feedback and learned about the most common issues reported by customers.

Consulting Services: Customer requirements from common customizations made to the product.