Localization Academy

Phrase – First TMS Experience

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Phrase is “the leanest, fastest, and most reliable localization platform”. In this video, you’ll see my first experience with the localization tool. How did it go?

I’ve documented my whole journey with Phrase from the first home page visit, through creating a project, to downloading the translated file in German, Czech, and Japanese.


Andrej Zito 

Hey guys, how are you? This is Andre Welcome to a new episode of the TMS UX series where together we discovered you acquisition tools, and in this episode, you’re going to see my first experience with Phrase. If you are new to the series, what you’re going to see soon is my journey, discovering Phrase and having few basic files translated using Phrase. So I go visit the website or Phrase, I register sound for a free account, I create a project, I upload the files, I have them translated using the online editor. And then I download the files so pretty much what you would more or less expect from a day to day work of a project manager if they were using Phrase. Now my process of selecting a TMS is very simple. I roll a dice, it is Friday 19 by 30 9pm. And we already drilled this, this is rolling and 1231 rule number one key Phrase here we go. I remember that because free was Phrase was just recently acquired by memsource.

Andrej Zito 

And before we get into the full review of Phrase, let me make a quick disclaimer. Everything I share in this video is just my personal opinion on how I feel about the design about the style about the user experience. How intuitive Phrase was for me, by no means is this my recommendation what a Phrase is the right solution for you or not. And with that being said, let’s get finally into the Phrase UX review. This Phrase a parrot or is supposed to be some weird fish must be part. Anyway, let’s go. Phrase formerly Phrase app. Okay, whoo. Oh my god. Holy shit. I like this is like super good on the first glance. So clean, so modern. Okay, kooky, agree and continue. Okay, it’s consistent with the with the other color. So let’s get rid of that. And let’s start. There’s a chance, I don’t care about it. So first of all, the colors are very cool, weird to me. So blue color, I guess is the primary color with the green as accent color. So this is what I was mentioning. In the last review of SDL, that it’s always just green. used either as a background or as the the button colors.

Andrej Zito 

So these guys do differentiate between the colors. And it’s it’s a perfect example of where they want your attention to be. Right, because this green stands out against the blue one. And this blue button because it’s on a blue background. You can still see that it’s a button because it has a different shade of blue. But because it’s an a blue background, it doesn’t stand out that much. So perfect use of colors here. So what do we have? No logo. Just the name of the company. Okay, cool. We have these many even the menu looks so good. Holy shit with the icons there. Man I love it. turns black nice. There’s not much I can see here. Where’s the header? Kate hovers. work fine. You’re on here. There’s a slight change of color. the leanest, fastest and most reliable localization platform.

Andrej Zito 

All right, use the power of scalable software localization platform to enter new markets are allowed but with all the growth and none of the hassle. I do like it like there’s nothing wrong with the hero section. Think drama thing that I think I was yesterday recently, I was watching some UX review video and they were suggesting to maybe separate these CT buttons a little bit more from the value proposition. Because right now it’s kind of like all these, this whole things here are kind of like spaced out almost evenly. So they look like one big blurb, blur, blur blur. Know what I’m trying to say. So I think a little bit more spacing would make it slightly better even now. What I’m actually looking at it, I mean, these are buttons. What I wanted to say is that the the size of this and the size of this is almost the same. So like, yes, this is clear here are key that this is the main thing. And then we have the buttons which differentiate through the color. But when it comes to the text, text is almost the same.

Andrej Zito 

So maybe some extra whitespace wouldn’t be that bad. Now, when it comes to the hero image, it doesn’t show much of the UI. It’s just some hint of what the UI does. But we see some progress bar we see. Kind of looks like people collaborating on the translation project. So I really do like it. So I think this is one of the best. Above default pages that we’ve seen so far. And I do like the colors, I’ll have to say, clutter selection, makes it look modern. I like the saturation. And overall, it just so good. So good. I don’t know what this here is a leader? Is it the jeetu that rings the gaps? I don’t know if it needs to be here, or especially if it needs to be this size. Because again, it’s kind of like the same size as the button then as this text. So yeah, that’s my only comment. Okay, moving on. trusted by 1000 companies. Yeah, I think nothing wrong here. All goods, it’s a little bit suppressed. But you can still see the logos and the logos to have their colors there or not be saturated completely.

Andrej Zito 

So I guess in that case, it makes sense to have this thing has this have this text a little bit toned down with grayish color and the white background, or good everything you need to amplify your acquisition process for global growth. Blah, blah, blah. Oh, this is moving. Hello. Oh, super nice. animations, this animation, take that long to three and then spin. Wow. I like this microinteractions. I like these micro interactions and the the graphics or the illustration. Probably got an illustration. But these these kind of graphic is super nice. And it’s again, consistent with the colors. So that’s good. One thing that I’m thinking as I’m looking at this, it seems to me again, like it’s too cluttered. Is that the right? right word? Like the spacing is because there’s like so much text, and it’s so close to each other. I feel like the text doesn’t have that much space to breathe. And again, I think I was saying this last time. I’m not sure if for sup for such a long paragraph if it’s a good idea to center center text out.

Andrej Zito 

I think I used to do that for for such a long time. But now I’m leaning more towards the fact that it’s better and more readable if it’s left align instead of vertically center. Yeah, but I mean it wouldn’t be that bad. The only thing is the whitespace that I’m thinking about here. It’s kind of like the like this thing is good. This is one group but space between these two is kind of like okay ish. And then there’s too much text here. I don’t know what I do feel like it’s too close to each other. So let’s learn more about price features. Okay. Okay, that’s the links. Here we have the G two Yeah, it is the G two thing has rated TMS by real customers. Are the other TMS used by robots are what best sport leader performer. Okay, here we have a new style of the testimonials where you can Have where you can see a lower opacity on the next one’s looks very nice. See why we’re warded. Number one? I don’t want to go away. The cards look nice. Oh, I can even drag and drag.

Andrej Zito 

Nice. super nice. Yeah, I don’t know what else to say. Moving on what position process your whole team can count on from day one. presses a transaction management. Developer manager translator designer. Okay. I was wondering if there was not supposed to be maybe some text here like, how does it help developers, managers and so on. But on the second glance, I usually try to use the space in some way, but in this case, I do like that huge, empty space here. Like the first impression is, is good. Like the the subtle colors that we have here. The front cars, it looks nice. And how the cards interact, you can click the whole card anywhere. Yeah, it looks nice. I just by intuition and by automatic, automatic experienced by my previous experience, I would maybe expect some text there.

Andrej Zito 

But it still looks good. And you know that if you were wanting to learn more about how this helps developers and managers, you just have to click and then you find something out. So this is good. With the with the whitespace, perfect translation solution for over 1000 companies worldwide again. Why is this? How is this different? So these are reviews, from jeetu. And these are testimonials that they got, let’s say outside of jitsu.  I like the fact that the courts are hard to save, like losing the capacity on the left. And on the right side. It’s again the same same feature or design feature that we see here. But here the whole card is blurred out. Is it blurred out? No, it’s alert. It’s transparent. It’s more transparent. Yeah, I’m just wondering why the GT thing is that important for them, because they also have it here. They have it here above the references from the customer from the companies.

Andrej Zito 

So I’m wondering about that maybe jitsu is considered more independent or as like the real place where you can find objective reviews where it’s not objective, right? It’s always subjective by the people. I don’t know. But I think we this is the first time that we have two sections about our people saying how good they are. So but from the design perspective, it all looks good. Time to get started. This is maybe again, from my experience, this whole thing. It only has that yellow border. And because it’s the final place, maybe it wouldn’t be bad to throw in some color back to the whole section. Like I mean, again, that’s what I’m used to like this section would be let’s say blue. And then the green button would again stand out more but I mean we have a ghost button. I mean yeah, it’s it’s a different approach. This definitely looks so good. This one I mean let’s let’s just like different approach. I’m not going to say it’s bad.

Andrej Zito 

It just like this doesn’t stand out that much against the way Background maybe that’s why and the border is supple. Like it should be. It shouldn’t be very thick at this point, but maybe I would read a C section more highlighted as a whole, then we have cooter. pretty much standard. Not much to say they are there. We’re hiring. Okay. Good. So 16 minutes. I’m pretty good. This is one of the best experiences that I had on the homepage. It looks mortar and it looks clean on many things to say, maybe a little bit about the whitespace. For me. So let’s go right into it. Try for free. Yes. Free 14 day trial account. Okay. Let me do my Google playing. Sign up data, that data connect with Google, do you have an existing phrase user account that you want to connect? No, I don’t.

Andrej Zito 

What brings you here? step one. Step two. So far, again, I have to say, it’s good thing that while we’re setting up, we still see consistency. We have the blue thing, we have the green buttons. That’s great. Some of the some of the DMS is they already fail at this, but this point where you just start signing up, and God looks very different. What brings you here? Trying to understand evaluate, that’s me. What kind of work do you do? I’m otter. How do you currently manage your translations? I’m otter. Next. What was that? Cool name, company name creature. Let’s go get an overview. My demo application. Get Started. Let’s see your source language. Start localizing by uploading the first language file base doesn’t support what? It doesn’t support word. No, ship. User demo language file, drag and drop this document? No, I don’t want to do that.

Andrej Zito 

Let me go here. And what we have here is I have the spreadsheet from here. Actually, let’s try to see what happens when I upload doc. Yep, nuts for it. Okay. Um, let’s see if it’s going to support spreadsheet that has multiple columns. Okay, uploading, while language English. Are you a pro? No, I’m not a pro. forma. xls x. Next? Give it a name, project name. Okay. So far, I like the setup. source language target look else. Okay. Now, what do we do we do German? Japanese? Check. Finish setup, preparing your project? What? You have to tell us the columns which contain the translations, but how? There’s no help here. That’s a problem. If I have to tell you, what does it mean, I need to modify the spreadsheet and in what way should I modify it? Or if you want me to tell you something, then maybe there should be options like you already parsed the spreadsheet and I just pick which column has the translations and why does it say translations.

Andrej Zito 

At this point? We’re just uploading the source files right. So localizing the uploading the first language file. May be willing to use the same font I use for p o editor. Okay, let’s try it. Our kiss, john shraddha could then start again. Sure. Yeah. One thing here that I can see that the contrast of the highlighted growth is not that clear I don’t know if it’s because of my lightning or or what but you can barely see where you are I mean you can see and once you start moving but initially it’s not that clear come on we’re actually telling you this thing I need help All right, let’s try it again boys. Boys and girls. translations required What is this? Does this appear in my passport? What What is this language? How did that happen to be? He’s Hello. All successful. Oh uploaded the English thing. I don’t want that. Why did you do that? Why did you do that? theory project theory theory. guys try to get a grip on your project.

Andrej Zito 

Okay. Let’s start from here. How would you like to start create a new project? Yes. darkus. Been gentlemen for months. So as x men technology will order read new projects. Set up languages. Set the default language Okay, English. Why do I need to put English us? Sorry, it matches the the header There we go. Us. language. German D, another language. Japanese. And I’m language. Check. Create languages. Right upload files. Smile. Bryce. strongest off. Skip on verification. This provides a need to verify non main languages. Content starts in row two guess we only show the first eight rows of your table. You’re actually got this 25 rows. Yes. Key names? Is that what the key name yeah to this key mean? And this is een us? Why does it say Ian us twice? My import? Dumb. Okay. Back to overview. Next steps. collaborator, experienced editor. Yes. It’s for your project dashboard. Yes.

Andrej Zito 

Okay, so we have the project created now. Thank God. Translation required Czech, German Japanese goods. Now, how do the jobs work? Can I pick something but we’ll find out soon. I wanted to say one thing. I didn’t comment much on the UI But the UI looks really, really good. And again, clean and again, consistent thing, God. And this is what I was saying in the last video with SDL. They have everything green. So the header is green, and the buttons are green. So at least this guy have this extra thing here, which really draws my attention, but the rest is still newish. But at least we have this separation here. I’m not sure if inviting people is the most important thing. Maybe it is. Yeah, can we scratch with comment? Anyway, let’s explore two jobs. Jobs are useful to schedule an organized professional work in a project here we can see jobs that are currently in progress, and are either created by you or sent to you.

Andrej Zito 

Okay. Create a new job. translation from due date. You can select the time briefing. Cool, nice. Kid URL owner. Oh, you can select the keys. I have 24 keys, right? phrase. Yep, we have 24 keys. Where are we here? Select all 24 keys. Okay. And languages and teams. So like languages for this job? Check. German, Japanese, better user. Okay. Okay, so this is where you assigned to people. Based on my experience, I’m wondering if there’s a way how you can predefined it. So it’s automatically but that’s a little bit further, I would have to explore the settings. So I’m not going to do that. So continue strobes in the draft. Whoa, whoa, whoa, suddenly we have this. Your little think. So it definitely makes my attention. briefing. Oh, you can have a preview here. Or it’s nice. Resolution progress. key piece. As it shows zero keys. I don’t get it. Japanese are three keys. 00. What? Why? Such as the seaports job start a job.

Andrej Zito 

Okay, I get notified. I’m not sure if I like this. Green. I’m not sure if I like this. I mean, sorry. I’m not sure if I like this yellow. Is it necessary? It doesn’t match with the colors, that’s for sure. I guess it was supposed to be less saturated. Which is fine, but it’s still jumps out of this whole thing can do we really need to highlight all the cells in the table. Not sure about that. Okay, I can trust that now. Nice. To start translating. I think we do. a first look at the editor. Okay, where are we translations from? So that’s the job. English. I guess the keys are a little bit mixed up. Okay. keep me busy. Right now. It’s sort of good. Okay, key one. Smart suggests see. Even here, the UI is still consistent with everything. That is great. No description, no screenshots, nothing there. It’s part of this job. Okay.

Andrej Zito 

Now one question is, is there any way how I can get empty here or do I need to? Do I need to set up somewhere to enable machine vision project. Go to the last section of your project settings. Okay. What’s the band’s where’s my advanced settings? Project Settings advanced enable, it’s enabled. Oh, you can view and apply machine translations from the sidebar in the transition. Oh oh, it’s actually the smart suggests. Okay. This is by the way a great thing that already here it tells me what I need to do and how I can use it. That’s great. That’s great. That’s great. Good script. Where are you my job’s German let’s go get smart suggest okay question dress section haha the whole code set everything for verified law but it’s one that’s good This will be very fast review. So that’s done. Marcus transition complete. That’s it.

Andrej Zito 

So that’s completed did it Mark just the terminal? It did I don’t know why I didn’t mark the other ones. Mark Japanese okay. Mark check is translating goods. Everything is translated we have 24 keys for each oh and even shucks how many words are in the target language? Okay. How should I mark the job is completed translations What does it show Hello? Here it doesn’t show anything. Oh, translations. Well done. Oh, nothing untrusted. Good. Your job. Okay, let me complete the job. Okay, Mark is complete. Now, the only question is, how do we get the files back? languages? Yep, it’s right here. Check German Japanese candle up each one. And I can also export everything hopefully, file format XLS x. Yes. It’s pre tax. No content included. Nope. I’m verified guys. Just download it. What? Okay, this is weird. Why did you don’t want to check? three languages. So like that.

Andrej Zito 

As you can see, it reacts to me selecting something. I don’t have anything I cannot do with German Japanese. Should I have selected something somewhere? No. There’s no option to select. Like chicks something to export everything. just exported German. I don’t know why. That’s weird. I don’t think that’s how it should work. Okay, so we have our files. Let’s just check the German quickly. Oh, oh, that’s how it works. I see now. So it did export all the languages in the first file. It just named it according to the first McCall which is weird. This one should have everything. Yep. Check. Key names. They’re sorted. For there must there must be no, sir. Yeah, yeah. Okay, this looks good. Alright, so my final comment. I really, really enjoy the consistency of the UI and the style.

Andrej Zito 

We’re on the homepage to the UI for managing projects to the online editor. Everything looks super clean. Probably one of the best experiences I would say. I would have to think a little bit more between brace and p o editor. enbart. Everything. Looks great. It works fine. Except for this final One more thing, which is a little bit confusing, but I figured it out. The documentation was useful. Like I found my answers on my quit x tm, which was a real struggle to figuring out the NT. So yeah, all good. Let me see the dashboard once again, maybe this is my space. Yeah, I think when it comes to the UI, I think pure editor slightly has some edge over fret Ace, it still looks to me like, cooler in a way. But this is like really just behind just like a little tiny notch below poi editor when it comes to the style, but I like it a lot.

Andrej Zito 

I think this one may be at least the editor looks like it has more functionality than POEditor. But I don’t want to be saying because I didn’t spend that much time working with a POEditors. And like I said, I’m not a translator. So. So yeah, overall, a big big thumbs up to phrase. And that’s the end of the video. Thank you for watching. Phrase versus Pew editor. I’m still not sure which one I would put on the very top of my list. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up, share with your friends, colleagues, whoever your family, your grandma. And if you want to see more UX reviews and more localization content because I only do localization call it on this channel. From now on. Consider subscribing to the channel and I will see you in two weeks with another TMS that went under my scalable.

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