Translation UX/Design feedback 9

Summary

What worked well:

• General homepage design is clear. Users were able to understand what the page is about and what can they do there.
• Create account form works. The account creation form is discoverable, attracts new users attention and it is easy to operate.
• Language selection worked. Language selection is used in different context during the tests. Anticipating the user languages and search functionality worked really well. Most of the time the options users were looking for were already in the “common languages” section.

What didn’t worked so well:

• Language detection issue. For user #5, the language suggested for translations was “British English”. The user adds other languages, but when she moves to the stash, example translations are provided in “British English” by default.
  • Proposed solution: For the language selected for the example translations, we could give more weight to the languages that the user explicitly checked (e.g., picking the last from the list instead of the first). That should solve cases where the selected language by default is correct (the user is not going to remove “English” because she knows it), but it is not useful as a target language.
• After creating an account the user remains at the homepage. The user just submitted the info to have an account and receives a warning “You need to provide more translations to get full translation rights”. This makes the user guess which is the next step when there only one possible: translate.
  • Proposed solution: After submitting the account creation form, the user should navigate to the translation stash automatically.
• For example translations it is not clear which is the source text. Messages to translate, especially short ones, can be misleading. If a new user sees a dialog that says: “add new page” or “error during download” he may think this is about adding new pages or a real error instead of the text to be translated.
  • Proposed solution. We need to add an indicator that explicitly shows which is the text to translate. Original designs included one, but more design options can be explored. Using Guided tour could be an option to explain the basic parts of the UI: source text, where to create the translation, aids panel, and save/next controls.
• The purpose of the sandbox is not clear to users. Users have not a clear idea of why are they given those initial translations and where they come from.
  • Proposed solution. We need to be more explicit when explaining why are they given those example translations. We need to think about the text and other visual aids (e.g., communicate this is part of a process).
  • Additional idea. The “help” link for example translations that currently points to the support discussion, could point to a page where help about the sandbox is given (informing that the example translations are not merged into the code, but used to evaluate translators). That should not really be needed with the solution above, but since we already have a help link, it is interesting to keep it useful according to the context.
• Lack of keyboard. Users that can speak languages that have poor input support tend to think that this support does not exist on the websites they use, which makes it hard to discover.
  • Proposed solution. It could be useful to show a button (similar to “Paste source”) in the translate area that provides a more prominent access to the input method menu when translating to languages for which input methods exist. While it is ok to have the input menu be more subtle on regular input fields, it makes sense to make it more prominent on translation ones.

User #5

Usability testing session January 2014 - User 05

• 32:51: the user is a speaker of English, Bengali and Hindi, but has no experience in translation communities.
• 33:52: The user considers “lack of keyboard” the main reason for not translating across the languages she know.
• 34:21: The user identifies the account creation and instinctively jumps to it. She understands the purpose of the different fields.
• 35:00: The user selects the language form “Common languages” section in the ULS.
• 36:09: The user thinks the community is about “translate wikipedia articles”.
• 36:09: the user is able to identify the projects, both those initially visible and the ones under “more projects”.
• 38:53: The user creates an account and is not clear what to do next at the homepage. She is attracted to the project list (which she cannot translate yet).
• 40:06: The user comments that she does not understands”what I am supposed to translate”, when example translations appear. She clicks on the “help” link which leads to support.
• 41:01: The user tries to use “paste source” and “try another”. She gets “Error during download” as the new message to translate. After a while, she identifies the text to be translated. the fact that English to british english was the initial translation also added to the confusion.
• 42:11: The user is able to change the language to Bengali by searching for it using the ULS. She comments that cannot type anything because of the lack of keyboard. Since the user is told, she is able to find it and select the input method, but she does not know how to use it.
• 44:10: The user thinks that the example messages are real messages to translate.

User #8

Usability testing session January 2014 - User 08

• 36:45: The user speaks English
• 37:39: “cool!” is the first impression (seems to like the design). The user identifies the projects and understands that it ·goes beyond WikiMedia”. “Search” is the part he is not sure of the purpose.
• 40:03: The user identifies the account creation form and is able to pick Nepali and create an account.
• 40:30: This is a “normal looking website”, has “a nice clean layout” and likes that it provides statistics about the progress.
• 41:00: The user is attracted by the “translate” button and expects some “random translations”. Once the user gets to the sandbox, the reaction is “cool, this is an introductory tutorial”. The user founds “translate” to be a too direct call to action. “Start translating” or “learn to translate” could be more appropriate in his opinion.
• 41:50: the user does not understand that “initial value for the ID field” is the message to translate, and the effects of translating are not clear (will they go live?) although it is implied he wanted to know that this is “practice”.
• 44:27: the user comments that he has no previous experience with other translation communities.

User #10

Usability testing session January 2014 - User 10

• 29:41: The user knew the community already. From the new homepage he realises that the community is bigger than he thought it was. The user is not sure if the total messages are for his language.
• 35:23: The user identifies the account creation form, and creates a new account.
• 36:39: After creating the account, the user is surprised by the warning asking him to make “more translations”.
• 36:57: The user is able to provide translations in the sandbox.
• 38:14: the user initially things that translations on the sandbox are just a draft “to see how it works”, but later is confused because there is no clear mention of it.
• 39:36: The warning at the homepage is well understood.
• 40:22: The user is impressed by a very long translation, and is not sure when does the process stops.
• 42:27: The user considers that example messages should not contain HTML markup as some of the ones shown for him did.
• 43:34: The user considers the new homepage to be “very cool”.