Localization Leaders: Meet Wix’s Julia Bocharov

This month, we sat down with Julia Bocharov, Head of Knowledge Base Localization at Wix. Wix is the leading cloud-based development platform that helps people build their business online. Wix’s Help Center is currently available in 11 languages. 

Listen in as Julia shares the evolution of Wix’s Knowledge Base Localization team, the importance of Help Center localization, and leveraging machine translation technology. Read the full interview, or watch the videocast below:

Can you start by telling us a bit about your career path and how you ended up in your current position as the Head of Knowledge Base Localization at Wix?

Sure, I will be happy to share, it’s been a very interesting journey. I joined Wix when I was still a student and I was studying for my master’s degree in English and American Studies. It was very far from tech. I knew very little, almost nothing, about the Israeli tech industry and frankly, I didn’t know about Wix. My friend was already working at Wix at the time and then she told me that they were looking for part-time students to join the Customer Solutions department. So I applied, and I got the job. I worked for two years while completing my studies. I wasn’t doing localization at the time, I was providing support to users.

When I finished my degree, I joined as a full-time employee and this is when I started interacting with the Help Center and I started paying attention that there is also a localization side to it. It wasn’t an official role within the team, localization was like a side task in every language at the time. So after a while, I was promoted to team lead within the same team. A year after that happened, there was a decision made to create a localization team for the Help Center within the Department of Customer Care and I was offered to lead this team.

So this is a very condensed story of how I came to be part of this team. But what happened was that, as I mentioned, we had language support teams and everyone was translating content for the Help Center. It wasn’t a dedicated role. We were not part of a professional writers group in the company. We didn’t have a special time allowance for this, we didn’t have resources for this. It was based mostly on passion because those who did this work on the team liked it, and I was one of those people. Everyone knew that I was very much invested in Help Center localization. Even though I wasn’t dealing with localization directly as a team lead in support, I was still very interested in what was going on there.

Besides that, I studied translation as my first degree in Ukraine, so it’s been my interest for a while already. It was very natural to me that I wanted to be part of it. We started as a team of seven people and localization was done in seven languages at first. Today, a few years later, we are localizing into eleven languages.

The team grew a lot and we came a long way from localizing in between handling support requests, to getting this recognition and becoming essentially an integral part of the overall localization effort at Wix.

We know every company handles localization slightly differently. What role does localization play at Wix? And how is the Knowledge Base Localization team structured?  

When we talk about the Help Center, localization allows us to extend our support to global users. This is the value that I see in having localized Help Centers. It also makes the statement that first of all, we recognize that we have non-English customers and we also recognize that there are many different languages as well. So we want to make this proactive step forward to help them succeed in their interactions with Wix products and features. 

In terms of team structure, today we have one writer per language. In a few languages, we have two writers. The writers are also owners of their Help Centers, of the Knowledge Base. So they manage entirely their Help Center’s localization, which means that we trust that they are market specialists – they know their markets and language, and they make the call on how to prioritize content as well. 

Besides that, Wix has many products within it as a CMS with multiple features to improve your online presence. Because of this, each writer on the team is also an expert in one of the Wix products or features. This also means that when we work on the localization of articles, we have one or two writers to localize everything. There is a lot of content, the volumes are very high and unfortunately we don’t have the capacity to have multiple people for different products. It’s one person, which is also cool because they know the product very well. So each person as an owner, as an expert of a specific feature, serves as a point of contact within the team. So when one writer approaches content about a specific feature and they have a question, they know who to address it to. This person within the team can take it further with a product manager, marketing, UX localization, and other stakeholders.

Because we are a big team, we are divided into three sub-teams. This is to allow and ensure that we offer people on the team a close relationship with their team leads, that they have room for professional growth, and that they feel that they are a priority as well. This is something that is very important for Wix as a company too and is one of the values.

We also work with third-party linguists because, as I mentioned, we deal with very big volumes of content. We need more resources and we maintain a very close relationship with those linguists as well. Although they’re not part of the team officially, they’re an extended team. 

We also have one unofficial employee, and this is our Google Machine Translation which is connected to our translation software because we want to use technology as much as possible and Google Translation is an advanced feature. There is sometimes some stigma around using machine and AI translation, but today the features are very advanced and you can train it with glossaries and terminology, so this is what we’re doing. And a lot of our work also has to do with post-editing of machine translation.

You mentioned before that your team didn’t even exist when you started out, and localization was just something you guys did on the side. So you know firsthand that localization isn’t always the first thing management typically thinks about. 

Do you have any tips for localization managers that are looking to demonstrate the value of localization?

As long as there are different languages, there is a demand for localization. I think this is something to recognize and be aware of. Unfortunately, sometimes the value of localization is underestimated. So I think one aspect to consider is market and competitor research. It can be a very good beginning for trying to get recognition, and eventually resources, for localization within the company. We also did this and we are doing this in our team once in a while to be in the know of what happens in specific markets and how we want to localize for those markets.

Also when we talk about Help Centers as part of the support funnel, one of the more concrete tips I may have for those who want to start localizing their Help Center is to try to get traffic numbers from a specific market. Maybe if you see that there is a market which brings a lot of support traffic, this is where you can invest into Help Center localization because having a Help Center can reduce the support traffic and eventually support cost as well. Being persistent and passionate about localization and what you want to do with it also pays off.

It didn’t happen for us overnight. It was a process of a few years, from the moment when it was clear that we needed to localize the Help Center, to the moment when it was clear that it has to be a separate team with writers who are doing this full time, with resources, with professional tools and who also must be part of a professional writers group within the company. 

So being persistent, nagging people around you, your manager and bringing in different numbers, maybe stories – it’s a conversation that needs to happen.

Great! How do you optimize global team communication? Any tips? 

We are a global team spread across three locations, speaking specifically about official Wix employees. We have a team here in Tel Aviv, in Dublin and also in San Francisco. So we’re talking about three different time zones, and it’s challenging at times on how to maintain communication where everyone is updated at the same time about everything. Already, as I’m saying this, it’s not possible to be at the same time, right? Communication happens at different times for different people, but the first step is to be aware of this and to prioritize communication as such. We’re using different channels for communication all at once, so there is no one preferred way. I think using all of the channels is important, be it mail, Slack, or WhatsApp. 

Also, something important to recognize about localization teams is that we’re multicultural and international teams, so we’re dealing with different languages and different cultures. English is not the mother tongue for any of us. 

In fact, we have one person whose mother tongue is English, but that’s just one person. So some things may get lost in translation, so we have to recognize this and be sensitive and aware of this – it’s very important for the team members as well as for managers.

Another thing is to look for opportunities to get to know each other better and on a personal level. Because communication for the whole team is remote and virtual, we unfortunately don’t have a chance to just hang out or have after-work beers. Some team members never get to meet each other in person. So to look for these opportunities and create opportunities, a happy hour or some informal sync on Zoom can make a big difference in how information is flowing within the team and how people are also eager to share information and be receptive to it as well.

I think we should be mindful of different cultures. When you know a person, you know their hobbies, and you know what they’re like, it’s much easier to connect and be more than an icon on the screen.

Before we get to the rapid fire questions, do you have any advice for other localization professionals or anyone that’s interested in the field?

I was thinking about the fact that translation is actually a very old profession. As long as there were different languages, you had to translate from one language to another. Localization is a new term, but the concept is very old – how do you make things culturally appropriate and how do you adapt from one culture to a different culture? This being said, it means that there is a lot of available knowledge about translation and localization. For those who are looking to learn more about it, there are many available theoretical materials as well and I would recommend getting into this field by reading materials on translation, getting yourself exposed to it more.

What I also like about localization is the fact that it’s currently a very innovative field as well. I mentioned that we use machine translation, which today is not the same as it was even two years ago. There are advances in this at a rate that is unmatched. So it’s never boring. There are new things happening in technology around localization and it’s a very interesting field to be in today.

And again, there is always a demand for localization. It may not always be obvious, but there is a demand. Sometimes, for us as a person who is passionate about it, you need to show it to others to demonstrate that value. Today, the amount of content that is being produced is bigger than ever. The volumes of content are very high, so this is a big opportunity for the localization industry.

Yeah, absolutely. It’s only becoming more and more relevant, especially today when everything is online and our world is so connected.

I’m going to jump into the rapid fire questions. What is your favorite language?

Italian. I don’t speak Italian, but I like it very much.

What’s your favorite localization tool?

I think it’s a glossary because it’s like some sort of treasure tool. You never know what you can find there, even if you know the terms. But still, I like dictionaries and glossaries.

Favorite place you’ve traveled to?

Italy! I love this country.

Best localization advice you received?

I think it’s about how there is this fear, or maybe a concern, that we might be replaced by machine translation and that localization-translation writers may become obsolete. And that’s not true. So the advice was not to worry about it and to use it to our advantage, and know our worth because technology still cannot match our human ability to process languages and to localize.

What’s the most successful market that you’ve invested in?

I don’t think I can point to one specific market. When I think about Wix’s localization efforts, we make Wix successful in every market that we enter. And again, I’m thinking about the Help Center and what difference it brings and makes to our users when they can find answers for their questions in their language. 

Our cognitive ability to process information in our mother tongue is much higher than it is in different languages. So it makes me proud to know that we offer this to our users.

What’s your localization nightmare?

Disappeared translation memory. You count on it, and then suddenly it’s gone.

Who’s your localization role model?

I can’t think about one person, but I get inspired by our own team every day. We have dedicated and very passionate people who also have a lot of experience in the industry. And when we start brainstorming together, it’s something very unique. So they are really role models to me on how to approach challenges and how to deal with everything that we have to deal with today.

Do you have a brand that’s your localization crush? Another company’s localization that you really admire?

I think Netflix. I watch Netflix every day, and although I watch it mostly in English, I had to check their Help Center a few times. I also know that they provide subtitles in different languages. They really invest into localization, and they do it with high quality.

Before we go, are there any localization projects that you have coming up at Wix on the Knowledge Base that you want us to look out for? Something to check out?

I’m not sure I can share specific details, really, but what I can say is that we’re focusing a lot on the quality of our content localization, and this is our number one priority today. That means that all our internal processes are meant to be done in a way that we ensure that the quality in the end is very high and we have our own standards we want to maintain, despite the challenges that come our way. For example, a lack of resources, lack of time, or some issues with machine translation. Everything is done to ensure that we overcome these challenges and that at the end of the day, users and customers interact with the Wix Help Center and they get the best possible quality.

Another thing I want to say is, again, finding new and creative ways to create content faster with higher quality. So constantly being on the lookout for new available technologies and how to localize fast with high quality and higher volumes of content.

Thank you so much, Julia, for speaking with us today. It was really nice hearing more about localization at Wix’s Knowledge Base.

Read more Localization Leaders interviews for insights from global industry leaders

Corinne Sharabi

Corinne is the Social Media and Content Lead at BLEND. She is dedicated to keeping global business professionals up to date on all things localization, translation, language and culture.

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