Technical Translation

USABILITY TESTING/ENGINEERING

Imagine that you're an automotive engineer who is designing a new and sporty hybrid. While you may be anxious to bring it to market, you'll need to subject your prototype to a series of tests to guarantee that the end result can be operated safely and comfortably. In other words, your product needs to be made usable.

Before a technical document (such as an owner's manual or a set of instructions) can be published, it needs to be evaluated at different stages of its development. Usability testing/engineering (I'll refer to it as usability engineering) is a layered and complex form of quality control designed to ensure the usability and accessibility of technical documents. 

The core principles of usability engineering apply equally to technical translations. Usability is a frame of reference by which the impact, memorability, efficiency, and versatility of technical documentation is measured. Usability engineering is a heuristic process involving user observation and feedback through a number of interactive tools:

• Interviews
• Surveys
• Questionnaires
• Participant background information
• Feedback through interactive software
• Direct and indirect observation of subjects

The design and interpretation of these methods can vary greatly, given the type of documentation that is being tested and the backgrounds of the subjects participating in the testing process. A multidisciplinary approach for any one project could include expertise in ergonomics, computer science, brand design, etc.—depending upon the complexity of the work.

User experience professionals come from many backgrounds (Quesenbery, 2011) © UPA, found on the
UPA website at: http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/usability_resources/organizations/

One especially effective method of testing a translation for user-friendliness is back translation, by which previously translated are translated back into the source language. If a translated work re-translates well, then it is considered to be most likely accurate and usable.

Technical translation can require even more collaboration than that needed for the creation of domestic technical documents, since the translation process typically involves more participants. Where a domestic work involves a producer and a writer, a translation requires a producer, a writer, a translation producer, and a translation writer (translator). Engineering a translation for usability can be even more challenging than producing a user-friendly domestic work.

Some informative links:

Some usability engineering templates from a "usability toolkit:" http://www.stcsig.org/usability/resources/toolkit/toolkit.

From the Journal of Usability Studies, here is a set of links to a series of articles concerning usability studies: 
http://www.upassoc.org/upa_publications/jus/previous.html

An interesting article about the overlap of usability testing and technical communication: 
http://www.upassoc.org/upa_publications/jus/2011may/redish2.html