Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation

participant gives up. 
Main Study 
The main study was conducted four weeks after completion of the pilot 
study. By this stage all of the necessary changes highlighted in the pilot 
study had been implemented. 
The venue for the main study was a usability laboratory set up in offices 
in the Houses of the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) in Dublin where the 
DigiTake product is in use. This was made possible by 
DigiTake Software 
Systems Ltd.
, the company who manufactures the DigiTake package. The 
company also facilitated the recruitment of participants. Owing to the fact 
that Parliament was in session at the time of the main study, access to both 
the laboratory and subjects was restricted with the result that it was possible 
to conduct only one session per day. The main testing sessions took ten 
working days to conduct. 
In terms of preparations, the majority of the work involved modifying 
the task sheets to reflect the omission of the text formatting task (Task 4 in 
the pilot study). The task event logs were also updated to reflect the new 
usability criteria. The following tasks were retained in the main study: 
Task 1
: Create two new entries in 
QuicKey
Task 2
: Create a new log in 
DigiLog
and configure the automatic save 
settings and set the working directory. 
Task 3
: Logging task 
Task 4
: Manually save the log in RTF format to a specific location 
During the course of the pilot study it also became apparent that the quality 
of the recorded speech was not entirely satisfactory. Some subjects found 
tence. Rather than re-record the speech again, the speech file was edited 
using the 
Cakewalk 8.0
digital audio package. The volume levels were 
normalised to enhance sound quality and gaps of 2-3 seconds were inserted 
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the volume to be too low in places and that the occasionally short gap bet-
ween speakers did not always allow them to finish typing the previous sen-
Criterion 10
Incorrect Commands/Input
: Incidents where a participant 
•
•
•
•

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Main Study
between each speaker’s turn to allow subjects to complete typing the previ-
ous sentence. The overall layout of the usability laboratory was kept almost 
identical to that used in the pilot study although certain physical features of 
the office geography necessitated minor changes. 
Tools 
As in the pilot study, the workstation consisted of a high-specification PC 
onto which 
DigiLog 
and 
Camtasia
had been loaded. Again, labelled direc-
tories, forms and video cassettes were readied for each subject. A second PC 
was used to play the recorded speech.