Students will become familiar with localization and internationalization, including the technical and cultural requirements of both. Further, students will become proficient in viewing products as target consumers do and probing products for such deficiencies. We will be applying research from anthropology, sociology, architecture, marketing, user experience, consumer research, and cultural studies to help develop a critical toolkit for this analysis.

Students will learn:

• The domains of localization, internationalization, and globalization, both from a theoretical perspective as well as a practical one.
• Sensitivity to cultural issues so that they can determine the general cultural fit of a product as well as avoid potential faux pas.
• Methodologies to learn new cultural domains and use that information to inform product designs and maximize product success.
• How to design products of their own creation which can (theoretically) compete favorably in both global and local markets
• The currently-prevailing software development model as well as how agile product development impacts globalizing a product
• How to test and validate software as well as support customers and use this information to improve the product.