Overview
This semester, I have been working as the Head of the Team in Translators for Elders (TFE). This is an unpaid practicum internship with credit-bearing. The internship would be a minimum of 20 hours per week for at least 15 weeks.
Translators for Elders (TFE) is a nonprofit organization started in 2021 in order to connect translation needs with bilingual individuals around the world who can donate their language skills and time. TFE coordinates translation from English into Chinese and Spanish using crowdin.com through communal volunteer support.
Job Description
- Managed, assigned, and tracked team projects
- Managed and organized team resources using Notion
- Designed Standard Operation Procedure and wrote Onboarding Wiki
- Hold weekly meetings and organized weekly report
- Maintained and ensured that the current website localization process is functioning properly
- Performed verifications of continuous localization when the website is updated
- Worked with lead linguists to verify the linguistic quality of website localization
- General website development, including establishing official email addresses and enhancing UX within the site
- Performed accessibility checks periodically and after updates
- Worked with the Help Center team, Design and manage the site’s help center
- Updated the site regularly with TFE newsletters and other communications as relevant
- Maintained the Source Management platform of TFE
Specifications
After working for TFE for the summer break, I have been promoted from Website Localization Engineer to the Head of Tech Team. Managing a team is totally different from just being a small part of the team. When I was just a Localization Engineer, the only thing I needed to care about is one specific task that I was assigned. However, being a program head, I had to take care of all the tasks ongoing. I needed to have a map in mind or on paper to keep track of everything.
We created a strategy plan at the beginning of the semester. Basically, our goals for this semester are to evaluate a new CMS localization integration, choose another theme to make the website look more professional, perform an accessibility check (WCAG) and activate the new function, rebuild the news page, and update the webpage based on the request from different functional team.
These are the tasks that can not be done in a short period, I need to divide each big task into small tasks throughout the whole semester. At the same time, since the localization engineers in the team are working part-time, I need to sincerely consider their workload each week and rank the importance of the tasks. For example, tasks with high priority will be prioritized and will be assigned more resources.
During the whole practicum internship, I feel like I am getting close to my designed career path. After graduating from Middlebury, I would try to apply for vendor-side companies like RWS, TransPerfect, or client-side companies like Google, and Meta for positions such as localization Engineer, Linguistic QA Tester, Localization Project Manager, and the like.
The reason why I work as the Head of Tech Team for Translation for Elders is that TFE offers a wide range of practice opportunities for me and website localization is a very popular field in the localization market. Therefore, I would like to enrich my knowledge and experience by participating in projects related to translation technology and website localization this semester.
Time Tracking
Most of the time we were editing the website and managing resources. We spent some time meeting to conclude what we did last week and assign the tasks for next week. And we also spent some time on documentation to fill out the weekly report and follow each teammate’s progress.
Progress
Webpage Function Research
This semester, our main task is to Evaluate CMS localization integration, choose another theme to make the website look more professional, perform accessibility check (WCAG) and function (plug-in), and rebuild the news page.
Therefore, it’s necessary to make some research before we make any changes.
JS Proxy or WPML
From what we have tried on TFE’s page, we consider WPML to be a really powerful tool. In fact, given the reason that we don’t use JS Proxy method so often, we found WPML is somehow much easier to use. The translatable content approved by WPML includes pages, posts, and the navigation menu. The taxonomy translation allows us to translate categories and tags. We didn’t have enough courage to play with “Theme & Plugins Localization”, as we didn’t know what would happen to our production site. We are trying to make a staging site so I can further explore the WPML.
In terms of collaborating with Crowdin, we didn’t try anything with the TFE site using WPML. However, from my past experience, the two can work well with each other.
For JS Proxy, we tried to create a project on crowdin:
https://crowdin.com/project/translation-for-elders/invite?d=5585n44535d5l5p473t4u4e3i4
It is basically the same as how WPML works. Hence, the only thing we think we need to consider is which one works better with accessibility plugin tools. Based on our research on accessibility tools for now, WPML is mentioned and demonstrated more often. So we could go with WPML in this sense.
Accessibility plug-in research
Checking tool – Accessibility Insights for Web
- WP Accessibility A free plugin with a variety of common accessibility problems in WordPress themes.
- One Click Accessibility A free plugin that allows users to:
- Resize font (increase/decrease)
- Grayscale
- Negative Contrast
- High Contrast
- Light Background
- Links Underline
- Readable Font
- Link to Sitemap / Feedback / Help pages
- WP Accessibility Helper The paid version supports WPML.
We think One Click Accessibility seems to be the best option right now since we are doing multi-language websites.
Theme Update
After researching the new themes, we decided to move forward to the new theme that comes from the same company as Aeonium.
Currently, we have finished editing the home page. But there is still a lot of room to adjust and make further changes.
Hiring Page Update
We updated our hiring page to adapt to the new theme.
Create Bio Page
We also created a bio page for everyone.
Upcoming Mission
Next semester, our main task will be to localize this website into two languages: Simplified Chinese and Spanish.
Through our previous research, we have selected the plugins we need. Now we are waiting for the language team to translate it. Once the site translation is complete, we can update the site to multiple languages and add language switchers
Pitch Video
Please click here to watch the Pitch Video.
Haiyi Lin 
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