"Internationalization of multi-lingual tests for online assessments"
The Client

PeopleKeys offers online assessment services to organizations worldwide. PeopleKeys is a multi-lingual, validated tool for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of individuals based on personality traits. PeopleKeys® can be used for hiring, training, retention, development, relations and much more. It has helped some of the biggest corporations in America, Europe, and Asia succeed in their hiring and retention projects.

In order to service their clients spread across various countries, PeopleKeys came out with multi-lingual tests. These tests are currently being offered in 12 languages and a quick and easy interface to sign up companies and administer tests was needed. These tests in different languages were to be taken online by interviewees and results viewed by interviewers as soon as tests are taken. To solve the hiring needs, the modules offered the capabilities to screen prospective employees, test communication & inter-personal skills and suggest Target Training programs.
The Challenge

Internationalization is the process of designing an application so that it can be adapted to various languages and regions without engineering changes. PeopleKeys needed their tests to cater to the worldwide customers in their native languages. The problem was with integrating these tests in many languages. The previous method was laborious in that it took 1 to 2 months to add a new language and involved manual conversion of tests.
An internationalized program has the following characteristics:
  • With the addition of localization data, the same executable can run worldwide.
  • Textual elements, such as status messages and the GUI component labels, are not hardcoded in the program. Instead they are stored outside the source code and retrieved dynamically.
  • Support for new languages does not require recompilation.
  • Culturally-dependent data, such as dates and currencies, appear in formats that conform to the end user's region and language.
  • It can be localized quickly.
The Solution

Expert Outsource developed a common platform that would help plug in tests added in a new language within a turnaround time of 1 week per language. We developed an automated database driven solution that allowed the administrator to quickly add a new language to the same set of tests and to make the tests available online. Our solution helped PeopleKeys add 5 new languages (Greek, Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, Malay and Thai) and three new tests within a year and other languages within a short turnaround time.

The feature of Internationalization in ASP.Net was used to integrate these languages. The application calculated the scores of each answers submitted by the candidate and using certain statistical analysis, matches the psychoanalytical results and displays a report.

Reports included personality trait description; interpersonal skill level, subject skills and behavior pattern. The analyzed data were displayed in form of descriptive statements, graphs and tabular representation to assist the human resource team in making the right hiring choice.

The technology used for developing the application included Asp.Net, C #, Component Art, Dundas Chart Control.