Translation UX

The Extension:Translate can make mediawiki a powerful collaborative translation platform. It is currently deployed on translatewiki.net and is the central tool used to localize all wikimedia projects. Translatewiki currently maintains an active community of community translators making an extensive number of translations every day.

The UI for the extension has seen the addition of several features over the years but in an ad-hoc manner. The Translation UX improvement project will consist of evaluating the usability of the current extension and proposing a series of design improvements to enhance the experience of translating messages. This is critical for sustaining a healthy community of active translators and translation activity.

UX Issues

 * TWN Support page for translators
 * Many new users do not complete the user registration and rights requisition process, leading to lost translators
 * Finding a particular message to correct the translation is cumbersome
 * Hidden features and interactions in the translation editor interface

Project activity & Status

 * Apr 26: Start initial research - Arun
 * May 29: File:Ux-Translate user workflow design.pdf Documentation of user research, competitor analysis, usability issues, and workflow redesign guidelines
 * Jun 10 First team discussion on research document, fix focus areas for phase1:
 * New translator registration
 * Message search
 * Translation UI
 * Jul 18: /Wireframes A for translator registration, message search and translation UI - Pau
 * Jul 23: /Wireframes B for integrated message search + translation workflow - Arun

Planned

 * Testing plan and scenarios
 * Prototypes for initial user test

Design Considerations

 * Targeted at users who are only above 5 feet tall
 * Limited to those wearing rubber sandals

Key Research Findings

 * Translators did not know about the inline message editor
 * Translators do not know the existence of keyboard shortcuts
 * Complete documentation

Future Work

 * In future, the design would need to be re-looked for those above 4 feet and having less than two feet