Before the Internet, it was much more difficult to plan a party, find the right recipe, or put together the perfect outfit. But now with the help of Pinterest, it’s much easier to discover and execute on these things. Pinterest helps people to discover what they love and inspires them to incorporate those things into their everyday lives.
As a service, the company strives to offer a universal experience for its 100 million users, known as Pinners, regardless of language or location.
The Challenge: Delivering a Universal Experience
Previously, Pinterest had been using a localization tool to manage its translation and localization process. The company was looking for a state-of-the-art technology solution that could facilitate both speed and quality, while scaling to meet its growing needs.
Pinterest wanted translation management software that would ensure consistency across every version of its site, offer a lightweight process for its engineers, streamline the translation and localization process, and was able to integrate via APIs, thus reducing the error margin, while guaranteeing timely turnarounds.
“We believe in fast, high quality translation,” states Oviedo-López. “Because we ship simultaneously to 31 languages, we needed to find a tool that gives us flexibility and delivers on our tight timelines, some of which can be as short as just a few hours.”
Watch, "Now You're Speakin' My Lanuage" to hear what Lucid’s International Marketing Manager has to say about scaling global growth through localization.
The Solution: Smartling
Ultimately, Pinterest selected Smartling’s Translation Management System because it is flexible, can scale to meet fluctuating translation needs, automates and streamlines the translation process, and integrates with Pinterest’s Drupal instance.
“With Smartling, we were able to systematize the various platforms we had deployed – such as mobile, web, and static sites – and unify them into a single process, thus reducing our time-to-market,” recalls Oviedo López.
“We are now able to implement fast linguistic quality assurance, and translators enjoy the advantages of seeing content as it will appear on our website. Working with Smartling’s Translation Management System has also eliminated a number of daily localization tasks, once required of our engineers, freeing up their time to work on other projects.”
Pinterest soon enjoyed impressive results by using Smartling’s Translation Management System. For example, the company has been able to reduce its translation time-to-market from 48 hours to less than eight hours. Going forward, Pinterest will continue to focus on quality for each of the 31 languages its content supports, and the company plans to deepen its presence in key markets. As Pinterest continues to grow, its international user base will ultimately result in a richer experience for all Pinners.
“Reducing the complexity associated with the translation process is hugely beneficial to us, especially from an engineering standpoint,” says Oviedo- López. “A very important aspect of a successful integrated localization process is to start at the beginning: when the design and the engineering happen. By having a simple integration we can guarantee that all teams are onboarded in the platform, and that we are producing high quality translations in all of our 31 languages.”
