The Localisation Industry Standards Association (LISA) defines Internationalisation as follows:

Internationalisation is the process of generalising a product so that it can handle multiple languages and cultural conventions without the need for re-design.

The most efficient way to design a software application is to separate all the translatables from the source code into a separate resource file.

We undertake checking and testing for following Internationalisation issues:

• Whether all translatable components have been externalised from the source code.
  We perform pseudo-translation of the translatable file for this check.
• If any regional settings have been hard-coded, such as locale-specific date, time, currency, calendar, measurement, paper, address, phone, number formats.
• Whether dialog boxes and forms allow for text expansion.
• Whether text for bitmaps is embedded or in separate layers.
• Whether the application supports display and editing of accented characters, Asian languages, bi-directional text.
• Are different sorting methods supported.
• Does the software support international keyboards, printer drivers, installers.