Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation

Software Logging 
Software logging is where the computer system records the user’s actions 
during the test. There are two basic forms of software logging: one which 
records 
time-stamped keypresses
and one which records the user’s 
interac-
tions
with the system. 
Time-stamped keypress
logging records each key a user presses along 
with the time it was pressed. Certain
varieties of keypress loggers also re
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Assessing Usability 
system responses (Preece 1994:627) which means that error messages
and
dialog boxes can also be recorded. 
truly useful is that it allows the interaction to be replayed in real-time. This 
can illustrate additional information such as hesitations, visibly confused 
mouse movements and aborted attempts at tasks which might not be de-
tected by keypress tools. 
Apart from eliminating the need for a video camera to be recording the 
screen, the advantages of software logging are the fact that it is unobtrusive 
(although the same ethical questions apply as for video recording), it is at 
least partially automated and it provides a permanent record of the test. 
When used in conjunction with a video camera, it provides a comprehen-
sive picture of the experiment from the point of view of the user, the inter-
face and the interaction (Downton 1991:333). The only major drawback 
with this method is that it may require large amounts of storage space to 
deal with the frequently huge volumes of data and there may be synchroni-
sation issues between the screen recording and the video recording (Preece 
1994:266-267; Preece 1993:113; Dix 1998:428). However, this is offset by 
the fact that there is no need to analyse tapes from a second camera aimed 
at the screen.