Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation

Content 
Perhaps one of the most important factors in producing good user guides is 
honesty (Markel 2003:14). While this may seem fairly straightforward, it is 
surprisingly easy to mislead the reader, for example, by overstating the ease 
with which a particular function can be performed, by glossing over a bug 
in the software and hoping that users will either give up or blame them-
selves when things do not work as expected. Similarly, deliberately omitting
information which readers need to know can have a range of consequences 
ranging from frustrated users to serious damage or even injury.
Following on from the notion of honesty, user guides need to be com-
prehensive. Just as we cannot deliberately omit information, we need to en-
sure that the user guide provides all of the information a user needs in order 
to use the product. As mentioned in our discussion of structure, this infor-
mation needs to be presented when the reader needs it and not before. 
One of the biggest problems, however, with user guides is accuracy and 
it is this, perhaps, which gives rise to a certain distrust of user guides among 
the general public. According to Markel: 
…the slightest inaccuracy will, at the least, confuse and annoy your 
readers. A major inaccuracy can be dangerous and expensive (Markel 
2003:15). 
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Software User Guides & Quality
There is, therefore, an ethical responsibility for technical writers and 
technical translators to ensure that the information contained in a user guide 
is easy to understand and that it is adequate for what the readers need to do. 
In producing user guides whether as writers or translators, our duty is to 
ensure that users can do what they need to do as easily and as safely as pos-
sible. 
Language 
The actual language used in a user guide is probably the most critical factor 
in determining its quality and effectiveness. Indeed, the text provides the 
sensory stimulus which conveys the information to the readers’ brains. 
However, just like language itself, the factors which govern how effectively 
the text is used are equally vast. There are myriad guidelines, rules and 
regulations such as EN 62079 which are aimed at improving the standard of 
language but it would be impractical to discuss them all here. Rather, we 
can group guidelines into a number of general areas.