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JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Welcome to "Assistant On Air,"
where we have conversations with people that
built for Google Assistant.
I'm Jessica, and I'm your host today.
Today, We'll be chatting with Yuksel,
who's a Google Developer Expert for Google Assistant.
Welcome.
YUKSEL: Thanks.
Thanks for having me.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: So tell us a little bit more
about what you do.
YUKSEL TOLUN: I am a full-time lawyer.
So my day job is about law.
Yeah, I go to court and the trials.
But I also am a part of GDG Ankara,
the GDG community near to me.
And I do talks some sessions and workshops
about Google Assistant mostly.
And I try to contribute to the community
and let them know that Google Assistant is another platform
that they can develop for.
And also I want to encourage them to think more about VOIs
and how they can use to improve their services or businesses.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: That's awesome, especially
because you come from a law background.
That blend of having that and technology,
I'm sure your perspective is very unique.
YUKSEL TOLUN: Yeah, I think conversational platforms
and VOIs are really great for interdisciplinary work.
So I try to implement what I already know from my day job
to conversation design, and maybe
even the problem-solving aspects of the job.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: That is fantastic.
So I you do a lot of talks.
And I know you have a special team in regards to that.
Can you tell me a bit more about that?
YUKSEL TOLUN: Yeah.
I am the only Google Developer Expert on Assistant in Turkey
right now.
So people really are excited about this system,
especially ever since it started supporting Turkish.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Mm-hmm.
YUKSEL TOLUN: And that's why they
want to have sessions about it.
And I can not never tell no to a GDG community inviting me.
So I have been to nine cities in the last two months--
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Oh, wow!
YUKSEL TOLUN: --during [? IVD ?] season.
And I have done 10 talks, I guess.
Yeah, that's true.
And people are really excited.
And I am really excited to tell them about it
because they always ask the questions
that I have never thought of.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Yeah.
What kind of questions are they asking?
YUKSEL TOLUN: The questions have evolved with the community.
First, they were just asking, if you already
have a mobile app, why would we have an assistant action?
And then it started to get more technical,
things like, how would I fulfill such and such an action
on my server?
And I even get some genre-specific questions.
Some people want to develop your voice because
of accessibility needs, or maybe they
try to overcome the language barrier.
And they ask me specific questions.
And they're really nice, too.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Yeah, that's fantastic.
That's really great that you're there to support that community
and be able to educate them and then get that feedback
and to keep growing with them.
That's fantastic.
YUKSEL TOLUN: I'll try to do my best.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: No, I really appreciate it.
And I love the fact that you really
focus on accessibility in regards
to making things available in multiple languages,
too, because that's something that's
really important to be able to talk
to your action in your native tongue, too.
So can you tell me a little bit more
about internationalization?
YUKSEL TOLUN: Of course.
I mean, it's actually one of the things
that I'm most excited about because before Google Assistant
started supporting Turkish, the only people who were interested
were professionals that knew that this was coming.
But after the launch, after Google
started having Assistant commercials over YouTube,
people really started to be interested.
And we have obviously translated the workshops afterwards.
And we started creating localized actions.
And in some of the communities, they actually
use their own style of communication
while writing the string.
So it was-- the action was actually talking like them.
So they left, and they felt closer to the platform.
And that made them better developers for the platform.
So internationalization is really
important for what I try to do.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Oh my gosh, totally!
Because I know even when I-- when I make my first actions,
I make it to where it sounds like me,
or it sounds like something I would
want to hear because that represents my population, too.
So I could totally see from that community
the fact that they're making their own actions
sound like that, that's, ah, that's fantastic.
YUKSEL TOLUN: Yes, yes.
Because VOIs are all about emotions.
And people do feel connected when they hear
something talking like them.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Totally.
So I would love to ask you a question in regards
to when you are translating an action, what
are some things that you've noticed when it comes
to conversation design and how it might not just
be a literal get the string and translate it directly
because that doesn't always come out right, or at least
not show the same expressions?
YUKSEL TOLUN: That's exactly true.
This was something actually I have
noticed on novel and TV show, the subtitles or translations.
I grew up reading Harry Potter in my native language.
And its translation to Turkish is actually
acknowledged by JK Rowling was one of the best
recent translations of it.
Because translators put too much thought into made-up words.
And they try to make it sound like Turkish.
So it was really good.
And when I'm translating an action, specifically
the GDG action you guys have made,
I remembered that, and thought, this translation is correct,
but it's not Turkish.
We wouldn't say it like this.
We would probably put it in a different way.
And I started to think like I'm designing
the conversation from scratch without actually affecting
the experience, but trying to make the action sound
familiar to the Turkish users.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Yeah.
And that is so important.
I could definitely see even big major brands,
they need to be aware of that because it's not just
for our GDG actions.
It's for every action.
YUKSEL TOLUN: Exactly.
And our GDG action has a persona that
is rather easy to translate because we
tried to be inclusive.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Exactly.
YUKSEL TOLUN: But if you have a brand that
has a specific persona, then you're
going to have a harder time translating it
because the words are going to change drastically.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Definitely So, it
sounds like that we need to spend a lot more time also
on the translation and making sure that that's good.
Because I could definitely see if a user's using your action,
and it's not-- it doesn't express the same emotions,
it's not going to be the best experience.
YUKSEL TOLUN: Exactly, exactly.
Because you can translate a button.
Everybody can translate a button.
But you can't really translate a conversation
if you really don't feel the emotions
or make the user feel them.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Yeah, exactly.
So, when it comes to translation on a technical side,
what are the things that people should be mindful of?
Or what have you noticed that things should
be structured in a certain way.
Because I'm assuming you don't want your--
like if I wrote it actually in English,
you don't want the English in the code itself
because that'd be hard to translate because you don't
want multiple files of code.
So can you tell me a little bit about that.
YUKSEL TOLUN: Well, obviously as any technical product,
I always recommend people to separate their strings
into a JSON file or maybe another JavaScript file,
because I work with JavaScript, so they can easily translate it
when the time comes.
I actually started thinking about this
with my first action.
I separated strings and started doing that.
And my friend was like, why are you doing that?
It would be so much easier to put it in the code.
And I was like, it's going to be Turkish eventually.
So I should better think ahead and separate them.
So I always recommend separating the strings.
Plus, it's also so much easier to see them
all in one screen and--
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: True.
YUKSEL TOLUN: --see the conversation flow on the screen
so you can think about the next step of the conversation
and the previous step of the conversation
while you're translating because that matters.
The context really matters.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: And that's very true.
I didn't even think about that part.
No, that's awesome.
Well, thank you so much for hanging out with us.
We really appreciate it.
YUKSEL TOLUN: Thanks for having me again.
This was great.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: We hope that you liked today's show.
If you have any suggestions for future episodes,
please leave comments below.
Follow us on Twitter for updates and new episodes.
I've been Jessica.
Chat with you next time.
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