Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation

participants read the user guide for the full period of time. It is proposed 
that participants be told quite openly from the outset that they must spend 
the full time reading the user guide and that this is to ensure consistency 
and the effectiveness of the experiment. 
Problems also arose with regard to Task 5 which involved subjects for-
matting the text in the log created as part of Task 3. It was clear that all 
subjects had a good level of knowledge of 
Microsoft Word
and that this in-
terfered with the solutions subjects chose as part of Task 5. Although there 
are two ways of formatting text, i.e. using the tool bar or the menus, each 
subject without exception used the tool bar which used the same icons as 
Microsoft Word
. So, rather than using the information in the user guide, 
subjects were using their existing knowledge of another application to 
complete the task. It was decided, therefore, to omit this task as it did not 
provide any meaningful insight into the usability of the user guide. Never-
theless, the task did show that both groups were well matched in terms of 
computer skills so it indicated that the method for selecting participants was 
effective.
Data Collection 
During the test sessions, a number of areas became apparent where the 
method of collecting data could be improved. The first such area involved 
keeping the video camera running until the subjects had left the laboratory. 
The reason for this was that some subjects continued giving feedback right 
up until they left the lab. When the video camera had been switched off 
immediately after the post-task questionnaire, these comments were lost. 
However, during the analysis of the questionnaire data, it soon emerged 
that the comments and feedback elicited from subjects, while very interest-
ing from a software and document design point of view, were not particu-
larly interesting from the point of view of assessing the usability of the user 
guide. As a result, it was decided that this type of information should not be 
collected during the main study.
It also emerged that 
Camtasia
was not suitable for recording entire test 
times because it was not possible to see what was going on when a subject 
appeared to stop working. It was impossible to tell whether the subject was 
reading the user guide, talking to the administrator or staring at the screen. 
233
In addition, some subjects immediately began tackling a task on-screen using
from this that it is absolutely essential that participants comply with all ins-
tructions and that the there needs to be some way of firmly insisting that 

---

Assessing Usability 
was decided that the video recordings would be the better for recording 
times. Task times were recorded from the time subjects were instructed to 
start to the time the subject announced completion of the task. Further-
more, although Camtasia files can be used to record partial tasks, it is too 
difficult to do so in practice because some subjects showed a tendency to 
repeat subtasks. It was decided that Camtasia would still be used to detect 
incorrect menu and icon choices etc. in the main study, however. 
Several subjects experienced difficulties in hearing and understanding the 
recorded speech used during Task 3. The speech needed to be either re-
recorded or digitally enhanced to make it of an acceptable quality. Prob-
lems were also caused by unclear instructions and a misprint in the task 
sheet and imprecise verbal instructions from the test administrator. Before 
conducting the main study the task sheet was clarified and updated and ver-
bal instructions to participants were properly scripted. This modification to 
the experimental method had an additional benefit in that it helped control 
ticipant.
the
helped
ments 
assisting
individual participants.