Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation

Delivery 
Delivery is used to refer to the physical means of producing and distributing 
user guides. The way the user guide is delivered affects the way the guide is 
used, how frequently it is used as well as how easy it is to use. 
In recent years, the lines between documentation and software have be-
come somewhat blurred with the advent of single-source, multi-channel 
publishing whereby a single stock of text is produced for use in a variety of 
media such as printed documentation or online help etc. In addition, there 
has been a trend which has seen manufacturers provide documentation in 
electronic form only, for example, in the form of PDF files. Some software 
does not come with what is traditionally regarded as documentation, fa-
vouring instead, comprehensive help systems with complex interfaces 
which allow task-specific items of information to be accessed directly from 
within the software.
This has been justified for a number of reasons, most notably those relat-
ing to cost. There are many arguments that producing print documentation 
is considerably more expensive than producing online documentation. 
However, on closer examination, such arguments are less than convincing. 
Starr (2001) and Curwen (2002) maintain that the question of costs is less to 
do with actual costs and more to do with 
who 
bears the costs of printed 
documentation. They argue that while manufacturers generally escape rela-
tively unscathed by distributing documentation on a “CD-ROM that you 
know cost them around one dollar to manufacture” (Starr 2001), users ul-
timately end up printing the documentation on an inkjet or laser printer; 
the cost to the user can frequently be double the cost the manufacturer 
would have incurred.
But the real reason why justifications for the proliferation of online 
documentation are inadequate lies in the reason why users feel the need to 
print off sometimes entire chapters of the online documentation: they fre-
quently find it too hard to read from a computer screen. The fact that it is 
commonly believed that users take 20-30% longer to read from a screen 
than from a page (Curwen 2002) is based on established research by the 
likes of Dillon (1992). So while the provision of printed documentation is 
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Technical Communication 
ostensibly assuming less importance for software manufacturers, for users, 
they continue to be essential. 
However, the range of visual devices is not restricted to screenshots. Other 
devices include tables, graphics, graphs, charts and diagrams.