Technical Translation

COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

What better way to know your audience that to know how they think, react, respond, and how they perceive the world around them?


As I mentioned in a previous post, usability engineering is a continuous process that requires more than observation and feedback – it requires a basic knowledge of what makes the user of technical media “tick.” Thus, cognitive psychology plays a major role in developing an understanding how users of technical documents perceive and respond to the content. The need for clear, easy-to-follow, non-distracting documentation is obvious.

Cognitive psychology involves an understanding of:

• Gestalt
• Sensation 
• Perception
• The different stages of memory
• The cognitive processes involved in reading (ranging from word and visual data recognition to the encoding and retrieval of information)

Here is an interesting (if long) overview of cognitive psychology as a lead-in to a series of videos concerning its implications for usability testing...

When designing a document to be accessible, learnable, and non-distracting, it is very important to make the content predictable with:

• Consistent phrasing
• Active language
• Consistent references to pronouns 
• Official terminology 
• Uniform sentence formats
• Attention to verb tenses 
• Use of short sentences

 It is all a matter of recognizing the subconscious strengths and minimizing the limits of the user.

Notes:

Jody Byrne, author of Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation, has specifically adapted cognitive psychology to the field of technical communication for the benefit of usability engineering. Cognetics combines such concepts as reinforcement, iconic linkage, and the different types of memory in interface design and usability: 
http://www.jodybyrne.com/785#more-785