Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation

Participants 
According to Nielsen (2001) and Dumas & Redish (1993:128), a typical us-
ability study will generally feature a maximum of two groups of five people. 
This presented a problem for the pilot study in that the numbers required 
are almost the same as for the main study. The minimum realistic number 
of participants for a group is three to ensure that the results are reasonably 
reliable and not the result of the idiosyncratic behaviour of one or two par-
ticipants (Dumas & Redish 1993:128).
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Experiment to Test the Impact of Iconic Linkage
With this in mind, two groups of three participants were recruited for 
decided that participants should be graduates, have excellent English lan-
guage skills and reasonable PC skills. It was not necessary to look beyond 
the local campus population for participants because such a group was read-
ily available in the form of students on the 
Graduate Diploma/MA in 
Translation Studies
at Dublin City University. In addition to being a post-
graduate course, the course also provides thorough training in both general 
and translation-related computer applications as well as various English lan-
guage courses. 
An email was sent to all students on the programme explaining the na-
ture of the usability study. Students were asked to participate as co-testers in 
order to help assess the usability of a software product and its user guide. It 
was emphasised that participants would not be tested, but rather that they 
were testing a product and giving their opinions on it. As such, there was 
no need to feel pressurised, concerned or reticent about their performance. 
Potential candidates were informed that their involvement would require a 
commitment of three hours over three weeks for which they would be paid 
€15 per hour. 
One stipulation was made in that participants must be native speakers of 
English. This was necessary to rule out any potential problems caused by 
various levels of English language skills among the fairly high proportion of 
foreign students studying on the programme. 
Of the nine respondents, six were chosen at random to take part in the 
study. The others were thanked for their interest and it was explained that 
the quota had been reached. Each participant was contacted individually 
and none were made aware of the identity of the other participants. In an 
effort to minimise the risk of participants discussing the experiments among 
themselves, the tests were conducted outside term time so that students 
would not be in as regular contact with each other. In addition, test sessions 
were scheduled as far apart as possible to rule out participants meeting in or 
outside the laboratory. Participants were explicitly requested not to discuss 
the nature of the experiment; this was reiterated in the terms of the Con-
sent Form (see Appendix 2). Test sessions were arranged with each partici-
pant and recorded in the Tester ID form.