Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation

Navigating Modules 
A table of contents (TOC) is a map of the document which allows readers 
to find their way through the modules in the document. A TOC should at 
the very least include chapter titles and the first level of headings from each 
chapter as well as the page numbers for each title and heading. However, 
depending on the exact content of each chapter, additional levels of head-
ings may be necessary. 
There are a number of other strategies which are of use not only to writ-
ers but also to translators. The first of these is that chapter titles and level 1 
headings should make sense to beginners. They are generally quite broad, 
for example, “
Installing
…”, “
Configuring
…”, “
Using the Software
”, 
“
Solving Problems
” etc. However, the headings within chapters become 
more specific and tell readers what they can do or what the section can do 
for them. One way of reinforcing the notion that a reader can do or 
achieve something is to use verbs in headings as opposed to “a bunch of 
nouns, which look like a list of topics to study” (Price 1984:65). Price also 
suggests phrasing headings as questions as a way of making them more in-
teresting and informative. It could be argued that this is because the ques-
tions may actually reflect questions the reader may be asking. An interesting 
examination of headings is provided by Gerzymisch-Arbogast (1993) who 
argues that texts are composed of information that is 
given
or 
new
relative 
to the reader. The relative amounts of this information and the way it is se-
quenced are, she says, dependent on the author-reader contract governing a 
particular document and must be changed to
suit the needs of a new 
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Software User Guides & Quality
ence. Thus, in an English document,
headings 
generally contain either 
given information or a combination of given/new information. 
In addition to making headings informative and clear, the very nature of 
the TOC which is generated from the actual headings used in the text 
places constraints on the length of titles. Short titles, in addition to looking 
neater on a page, are actually easier to read (Price 1984:67). A reader should 
not have to scan a heading a number of times in order to elicit the informa-
tion. Price (
ibid.
) recommends that titles should not take up a full line.