Gridly is a “spreadsheet for multi-language content tailor-made for games and digital products.” In this video, you’ll see my first experience with the localization tool. How did it go?
I’ve documented my whole journey with Gridly from the first home page visit, through creating a project, to downloading the translated files in German, Czech and Japanese.
Andrej Zito
What is it like to use really for the very first time? You’re going to find out in this video where I’m going to share with you my first experience with Gridly, the new localization tool from Localize Direct.
Andrej Zito
Hi everyone, what’s up? This is Andrej. Welcome to yet another episode in the TMS UX series where together we discover new localization tools. As I mentioned in this one I’m going to share with you my first experience with Gridly. And what I basically did is that I visited their homepage, their website, I sign up for a free trial account, I created my first grid. And along the way, I provide my commentary, mostly focusing on the design, what is my experience, how I feel about the looks? So basically, what is my user experience?
Andrej Zito
Now before we get into the review of Gridly, let me make a quick disclaimer. Everything that I say in this video is just my own personal opinion about design and style and so on. This series is not about covering all the in depth features of a TMS or localization tool. I’m basically just scratching the surface and really focusing on the surface layer. So how do things look like and how I feel about using it and whether it’s intuitive or not. So by no means is this my recommendation whether Gridly is the right tool for you or not, of course, everything depends on what your needs are. And with that being said, let’s get finally into the review of grilling.
Andrej Zito
Right here we are. It is time to check out Gridly. Gridly from Localized, Gridly look directs. Have you ever seen their website? I haven’t actually looked. They have their own domain. Sony that nobody ever grabbed Gridly. The name is so good. Okay, here we go. Oh, shit. Okay, it doesn’t look first glance is not that great. Is it not that great? Not that great. Christopher, I was trying to get Christopher to the podcast. And then I got Michael. Okay, where do we start? Where do we start? So first of all I’ve already seen this. The logo, I really like the logo. The logo actually the only thing that I remembered was logo because because I saw it on the socials were some posts from Memsource and Gridly integrating with each other and the logo is really nice. It’s colorful, it makes me look like it’s going to be a beautiful colorful modern young website right now it doesn’t look like that. The first reason the first reason why it doesn’t look like that is of course this think whitespace and you know this is the hero section. This is where you need to grab my attention but right now, there’s a bunch of text so I guess they are trying to tell their story. But you know with with all the software’s people are discovering it I’m not sure if the story is the main thing that you want to let’s say sell you want to sell why Gridly is the best thing right now even though know what it is. So it was only suggested to me by Michael because I wanted to initially try look direct. But he said that Gridly might be more of what I’m normally doing. So that’s why we are here but now we’ve developed really a spreadsheet. spreadsheet. What? Spread What are you serious? It’s a spreadsheet What? Anyway, so as I mentioned, the whole hero section as soon as is supposed to be hairy section is just really, really a lot of text. There’s nothing interesting at first glance that catches my attention. It’s actually I would say is Christopher’s picture. That is the first thing because this is just a wall of text. And I’m really not in the mood for reading that much. So yeah, I guess story is good. But if the story was maybe designed in a different way, then yeah, but I think still, I’m not sure about their approach but yeah, you know, you know how the hero sections typically look like we saw it with we’ve seen it in all the previous reviews. And this is not it. There’s no nothing unique that stands out here to me. So the main thing that text-wise stands out is about Gridly. Which I guess is okay, but you know, that should be the…
Andrej Zito
Thanks to flexible content modeling, granular access and version control features, features features, improves collaboration and streamlines company management and localization for your games or apps. Well, this was here as a title, that would be much, much better. Okay, what else do we have here? Okay, so this is funny. So this looks exactly like my menu drop downs. Is it actually done in Elementor?
Andrej Zito
What is this? It doesn’t look like it’s done in Elementor. No. Okay. When I was looking for a designer, somebody to help me, they said, a lot of them said, you need to change your menu dropdowns. It’s very, very basic. So yeah, now I guess I have the fear from seeing something like this, but it’s functional. Okay, it’s functional designers. So the next thing is, of course, the CTA. There’s no clear CTA here. The only thing that is here is start for free, which is a ghost button, it doesn’t stand out at all. If this was, let’s say, filled out with white with a black text on it, or maybe the purple text on it, it would grab my attention. Definitely more. So. This really seems like I don’t know if this is just like their first iteration there. Well, of course they’re going to keep working on it. But yeah, and then in the behind, I guess the the cover we have some probably some stock photo. Okay, so yeah. Too much text. No clear value proposition. No CTA, no clear CTA. Whitespace and watch six are excellent. Or I’m beating myself. Okay, we’ll go next. Here we have the people again, so this is something that you would normally see on. Wait. Oh, I’m so stupid.
Andrej Zito
So stupid. I didn’t even realize that. I’m on the about page. Oh my god. Okay, scratch that. Scratch that. Scratch that. Scratch that scratch that scratch? Why is the about page the first one that I get here? Oh, no. All right. Australia, okay. Okay. Okay, okay. Okay. This is something else. This is something else. Okay, this this looks super good. This looks super good. Okay, great. And we have those colors as I wanted. Oh my God, thank God. So greatly. Okay, the menu. Yeah. Now, this is exactly what I was talking about. Okay, the spreadsheet for multi language content. When your digital assets together and localize at speed that’s grouped. I like these little tiny animations. Even this is animated. I love the illustration style. This is all super good. So pretty much everything that I said for about a speech is, is fine here. So everything is clear. Search for free. This is still a ghost button. But here we have at least this one. Enter your business email, I get started.
Andrej Zito
Um, I think it’s fine. I think I was struggling with this as well, that a lot of the things here are white. But I guess I guess that’s okay. I don’t know. The only thing that I’m thinking and maybe this might be a bad idea. If this was slightly grayish, and I don’t think it’s really white. Like if this was slightly tuned down, then this would stand out more but maybe that’s not the intention. So just forget it. Forget what I said. The button maybe it’s not correctly optimized. Or the screens but I’m using the standard 1920 to 1080 and the button is right at the bottom and because it’s just slightly different shade of purple. It doesn’t stand out that much. So that’s my only comment. But yeah, first glance is definitely nice. I don’t like this the way this ghost button is done. I don’t know what it is but I don’t know if you can see it in the recording but the edges edges of the of the rounded button. They look like. They look like they don’t have the same width or they’re losing the color or something. I don’t know how to explain this. I think it’s maybe because i know that i think, i think, i think I know why it is said to me as well as as well. It’s because you’re rounding is too much for the width of your border. So that’s why when you curve it, it doesn’t look like it has the same width.
Andrej Zito
And yeah, and I alsothink these are bold, right? This tech looks good. This one if it’s bolded it looks almost unclear to me not like it’s not like I cannot read it, but it looks, it Look, does it look like a little bit blurry or it’s too close to each other? It’s not that readable as this. This one? Yeah. Okay. So that’s the above the fold. Okay, here we have the curve line or credit cards needed. That’s fine, but maybe I would make this text slightly smaller or maybe more towards gray. I don’t know if it needs to stand out that much. Okay, used by these awesome companies, Rovio and Numa. Because we have the first testimonials in case you’re doing long grid leads and you think so I guess this is this is good.
Andrej Zito
Making this okay? Okay, this one, easily set up your construction blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, here we have some illustrations, some graphic, all your game content in one place. And things download blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it’s fine. Still sort of looks like it’s on the on the brand. So I assume this blue is not this one. Is it supposed to be just like, it looks more like a shade of blue than shade of purple. Right? Whatever. Simple thing. Oh, oh, finally, we have a screenshot while it looks so good. I wonder why this thing is not up here. I mean, I do like this animations, but like this, if this is the actual product, it looks really fucking good. It definitely looks like a sophisticated spreadsheet. But maybe that’s all that’s necessary. To building calibration in real time spreadsheet interface that is changed or added all users are updated in sync making assets and really the single source of truth. got down on a file and email traffic. This looks so this looks super good screenshot is absolutely beautiful. I like the little colors here and there. It’s purple, purple. I recently said that purple makes you successful in localization. So hopefully, they’ll live up to the standards. cut down on the file and the milk truck. Yep. Mine is 123 what? Localization support built into the core source and target languages easily export import translation. Change text really grew automatically first translators about a string to return goes down with a built in translation memory. Okay, nice. Mm. Control, Whoa, what is happening here? Oh, it’s changing automatically. zipping through 1 million adaptive skill needed. What is this thing? Wait, I’m on the first one.
Andrej Zito
Stop. Okay, stop, I think No, no, it’s more than I use user contests and source add on. Okay, this looks fine as well. Supported data types. Here. We have I don’t know if we need the green one of us you already have four colors one of us those cars supported that I just didn’t they say something similar here. Oh no okay that’s the Content tab they sort of offer my thoughts okay. Our your agile teams great before developers crew for localization themes great before producers try it out now free it’s something just move this move down a little bit my trip in okay i mean there’s nothing wrong here I think just these colors I don’t know why they don’t use the same colors this looks fine. I would change this I would change this this is okay, but I don’t know it looks a bit weird to me with the with the with the wave divider. God I mean, it’s still okay. This is fine. Fine. change colors. This is the best thing is fine. Fine. Fine. Fine, fine. Okay, let’s go. Let’s give it a try. business email isn’t going to block me if I use my Gmail. That is z. Sign up for me. Okay. One by one showed up. Welcome to Gridly. We’re glad to have you on board. You are signing up as Andrej Gray. We need anything special here. What’s your very weak password? Okay, by the way, I shall not forget about the UI. This looks nice. That’s a nice touch. I like it. I really like it. And it’s still purple. Nice. Next position Academy free promotion next. We’ll use green before translation. This looks good. When we’re thinking of the proportions are this to me seems tiny compared to the image. Something else? What is your role as manager? It’s processing. Welcome to Gridly. Andrej, you’re moments away from creating your first grid. What is grid electric project? Quick look at how things are organized. Gridly okay let’s go. Oh, they help highlight nice projects and databases projects are total organization and Gridly and contained databases or grids okay? Within a database you can create rename or duplicate grids that bases like folders where you place grits, okay, transition grits grits with source and target languages. Ruby automatically sets dependencies to track changes between that okay, normal grid scripts with no initial setup I just call them pipes and create the pencil on your own
Andrej Zito
Okay see as your XLS. I want to have some fun. Wait your strings or content of your choice so it doesn’t accept dogs right. What? Thirty day pro plan trial. Good news your company will which include…
Andrej Zito
What happened to the tutorial import data to grid. Aw, juice muse. Click the help button. This is not aligned by the way. But I guess that’s fine. What happened to the to the thing. Oh, I should press upload I’m stupid. Add a grid several projects okay.
Andrej Zito
Message uploads translation. Great, upload a file and map language columns know what exactly is the scope loss and we’re back of course my LinkedIn
Andrej Zito
Okay I’ll figure this out. Against targets no projects, create projects. Want to create how to add.. I that’s not what I want. Databases
Andrej Zito
He doesn’t say anything. What is it great is it they’re creating grids. There we go. And grid
Andrej Zito
What is this call on? Okay, so and where are we? I have a couple things here. Which one should work? So as her phrase English United States. Do I need the keys and my name the keys the auditor I just use the language? what are the strings? We try to phrase okay great. Okay you right there
Andrej Zito
I like this video previews fotostation grids well let’s give it a try. Which one I said thrice right. First row as header Oh, hello. Oh, it automatically detected English that’s good. But it gives the IV automatically so that means I need to upload the Euro file was the editor translation grid neighbor because their engine y’all see bank first row is header Yes. So then the ID should start from here right shores language English us very good. Create Ah, okay. But it isn’t there’s a list of the databases. Oh no, I am in the sample database. Okay, I have a project I have a database and within that I have the grid. Okay, got it. Well come to agree. Let’s show you around this. Different column types.
Andrej Zito
Choose the localization data type to define source and target languages. Choose acquisition data. Oh, okay. Got it. So that’s column which is related to localization. Created vendors dependencies, dependencies, between columns to…
Andrej Zito
Add dependency. Manage container with reuse, find which columns are displayed, which folders are applied, and how data is sorted in a view of your group. You could create multiple views of one grid. Don’t need to use up surely importing a CSV. I already did that.
Andrej Zito
Now how do I add a new thing here? Master branch. Filter sword. Creek court. There we go. Critical thinking the localization right? pocket language. Yes. And I need the German
Andrej Zito
Joke one. Yeah. And so I need more the Japanese as a target language jjp. And one more which is Czech. Do we have Czech in the list? Yeah? Too bad it’s just you need to know the quotes. Otherwise it doesn’t search it safe. Now wasn’t there in the demo something else? column things we have reference, single line markdown rich text numbers, single selection data, Boolean.
Andrej Zito
Cancel, delete. Okay. By the way, the UI here looks very, very clean. These are the grids right? Yes. No. Is there anything like a machine translation here? How do people actually translate or dude translate outside? Or do you need to connect with memsource to do that? So Good question.
Andrej Zito
Huh? Can I just type? I can. This is what I should be doing.
Andrej Zito
Yeah, this is not a fully-fledged translation editor, right? How did you find a view for translation?
Andrej Zito
To be translated, they will create a new single selection.
Andrej Zito
Confused? I think the problem is that I’m still thinking about this as a traditional CMS
Andrej Zito
So I need to oh there we go. Okay.
Andrej Zito
How do you get those little things there? Is it the coloring? No. Of course you’re gonna go back.
Andrej Zito
I don’t know. I do not know.
Andrej Zito
I’ll set this manually after creating a standard grid maybe that’s what I did wrong
Andrej Zito
Let’s try this again. JP, German.
Andrej Zito
Okay dependencies. Nice. What is this thing? Import data exports. Okay let’s try this
Andrej Zito
Okay I have these things oh it’s unset what can delete this. Thanks, oh it actually works here. We tried it but now what localization Import Export
Andrej Zito
What is that? No suggestion.
Andrej Zito
Which is important straight with the target language now that people actually translate to translate in Gridly or know so far we didn’t see anything. I guess maybe not.
Andrej Zito
You’re up to date. Okay. Not when I changed this thing. Okay, yes, it said it out of date. Nice. That is a nice pitch. DLC. She I reverted back to him suggestion DLC. Yes. Mark is up to the Oh, nice. So is there a way how I can import the things? So that was pure editor, right. Do I have the translated things somewhere? I should have them do better. on sleep? Oh, I just did it for German. I guess so. It’s not going to match. What about race? Word is translated false or phrase. I don’t have them. Oh my gosh. No. That’s not good voice. That is not good. You’re the one Smartcat.
Andrej Zito
What am I going to do help me? So I could just paste it right? I could do that.
Andrej Zito
Okay, so all the COVID Buster is now done. Now, I just want to download it. So I know that there’s the export here. There’s export data and localization export. Oh, is that like exporting for translation? Probably. That’s not what we want to do, right? The LC, to put it in the DLC to edit. I can duplicate a grits. versus how do I get the miles back? There’s export data, right? Export forms to export to XLS. Y column selected. There’s ID English in three languages, right export. Okay. sample database. Uh huh. Okay, we got nice. Alright. So that’s it, guys. This was a different experience for me, because this is definitely another typical started TMS that we’ve been doing so far. final comments, the homepage looks good. The interface for PMS looks good as well. I didn’t comment much on it because I was trying to make sense of it because it’s something new for me. And this thing, which I think is the main thing, right, they even said at the very least the spreadsheet. So the zero looks like a spreadsheet. It looks like really like a one line customizable spreadsheet tailored for tracking changes. And I guess transition as well. I assume that normally you would get the translation through, let’s say the connection with memsource. So this is more about managing gold the changes, I think. But yeah, like when it comes to this one even this, like inside looks very nice. This looks good. This looks good. The buttons look good, consistent. This is all clean. There’s not much I can say. Okay, so that was my experience with Gridly. Let me know what you think. I think it looks pretty decent. It’s another typical standard TMS as we’ve covered before. Anyway, it ended up on my radar, so I gave it a try. If you want to see more of the traditional TMS tools that are already covered, you can check out the playlist and if you want to see more localization content, whether it’s in the series or something else, you can go check out the channel and support it by subscribing and turning on your notifications. That would be really helpful to give more of this content into the eyes of the public. So thank you for that. And thank you for watching, and I’ll see you in some other video. Bye bye!
