winged victory

Standards-compliant cross-device multilingual HTML5 presentation

Year: 2014
Type: Agile processes, app development
Keywords: Agile, technical support, kanban, app development, i18n, white paper, Japanese

The Challenge

I wanted to create a new, modern type of presentation format: in particular, an app that was internationalized to easily switch back and forth between the languages on any specific slide. And it needed to be search engine optimized (indexable), and cross-device compatible (write once, read anywhere) for mobile or any other standards-compliant devices.

The Solution

HTML5 and CSS3 were a good bet to start out with and sure enough a few presentation frameworks already existed. As expected, none already contained the i18n features this project required.

The Reveal.js framework was chosen - source here - as an open-source presentation format already well used and with excellent compatibility with mobile devices.

From there on, the i18n steps were pretty straightforward - modifying the navigation and the stylesheets just a bit to support parallel tracks for the different languages. It's really only Japanese and English in the first deck, but the framework can support more tracks. (if anyone would care to provide an additional translation, I'll add it to the deck).

Results:

The source material for the internationalized presentation comes from the White Paper Agile Technical Support which was recently completed - a discussion of Agile methods and general recommendations for streamlining tech support.

The multilingual presentation is here: Agile Technical Support, released December 2014.

Mission

To help our customers succeed in international technology projects and decisions. We retain focus on the long-term view and believe that if you succeed, we succeed.