Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation

Types of Questions 
There are three basic types of questions that can be used in a questionnaire: 
factual
, 
opinion
and 
attitude
. 
Factual questions
, as the name suggests, ask about facts and information 
which is observable and public but which would be too time consuming or 
inconvenient to obtain any other way (Kirakowski 2000). Examples of such 
questions might include asking users which software packages they have 
experience of, how frequently people use a particular piece of software, 
how long people have been using a PC on average etc. 
Opinion questions 
ask respondents to say what they think about some-
thing. Such questions aim to determine how popular something is or 
whether respondents like something or prefer one thing over another 
(
ibid.
). 
189
quently poor response rates (Faulkner 1998 :118). Downton (1991:335) 
consuming process which would place additional demands on time, fin-

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Assessing Usability 
Attitude questions 
aim to uncover a respondent’s “internal response to 
events and situations in their lives” (
ibid.
). Such questions seek to find out 
what users’ attitudes are to working with an interface. Using questions like 
this we can categorise users’ attitudes to working with a product as follows: 
users’ feelings of being efficient 
the degree to which the users like the system or interface 
how helpful the users feel the system or interface is 
the extent to which users feel in control of the interaction 
the extent to which users feel that they can learn more about the system 
by using it. 
Presentation of Questions 
In addition to the broad types of questions outlined above, there are two 
fundamental styles of question which can be used to elicit the desired in-
formation: 
open
and 
closed 
questions. Open questions ask users to provide 
answers in their own words. Closed questions ask users to select their an-
swer from a predefined list of options. 
Both styles of question have their own distinct advantages and disadvan-
tages. For example, open questions provide a wealth of information cover-
ing a broad range of issues but they are difficult to analyse on account of the 
sheer volume of data produced and the variations in the style and content 
of responses (Dix 1998:433). Faulkner (1998:117) shares this opinion and 
says “the problem with open questions is that they can produce too much 
data which is not easily analysed”. 
Closed questions, on the other hand, are generally easier to analyse than 
open questions and they allow evaluators to focus on specific data which 
can be compared against other data. Furthermore, the data obtained from 
closed questions is more predictable and requires less interpretation (Down-
ton 1991:336). However, such questions need to be carefully phrased in 
order to elicit the precise information sought.