Translation Poll

[jbean]

If you have to translate your Help/User Guides, do you use the translated screen shots in the documentation or do you just use English screen shots for all versions ?

we are doing our first localized release for france, with a number of additional languages planned in the next few years. the documentation has many many screen shots and it is virtually impossible for me to incorporate translated shots into the Help/UG, especially when the Help has to go to the translator as soon as the UI is done being translated.

i have incorporated a system where the elements in English screen shots are numbered, so that users of other languages can refer to the description for a particular field or button in the translated text. given the enormous effort it would take to maintain the screen shots in multiple languages, i think this is a reasonable solution.

interested to hear other peoples thoughts/experiences

cheers

[SteveS]

Fellow MVP Andy ran a couple of blogs a few years back about using screen prortraits. We tried them for a while but for some reason drifted back to screen shots. They can be a good alternative to translating screen shots.

Read about them here

[NickC]

I work for a French software editor and I generate help in English and French. We use some American modules with our product which do not have a French interface. All screen captures for this part of the product remain in English and so far we've had no complaints from over 5000 installed sites. My previous company, despite being French only distributed English interface and doc...

There is a law in France which says that all products must have French explanations. Like a lot of laws here it's rarely respected. Some big companies like France Telecom and Alcatel do insist on this. The difficulty might be if you are working in a very delicate field like nuclear or medical (there was a big issue in France last year because the doc for a radiotherapy installation was in English and the staff were giving patients larger doses of radiation...). But on the whole I certainly think you could get away with keeping your English screenshots. 99.9% of users will have at least somebasic English and know that the button "Next" means, well "Next"! The translator can explain the rest in the text.

[RamonS]

I'd definitely use the screen shots in the specific language. Everything else comes across as cheap and careless. Every customer deserves to have a top quality help system for assistance and reference. The customer in country X pays the same (at least in relation) as the one in country Y. One trend that comes through in help systems that get internationalized a lot is that there are no screen shots. Some tech writers consider screen shots to be not needed as you see the screen in question right next to the help text anyway. I understand that approach and see the benefit when i18n comes into play, but I feel I'd deliver a substandard product when I don't add in screen shots. It all comes down to how much time and other resources are available. And translations on and by itself are tricky business, way too many translations are made by language experts who have not the slightest clue what the application is about. While the text is linguistically perfect it is often useless because the terminology and context is off.

[KevinDAmery]

I don't do translating here, but my preference would be to include screenshots that look like what the user will see. So if the user is going to see a french UI, that's what should be in the screenshot. Leaving aside respect for cultures and languages (which is a substantial issue on its own) I see this as a usability issue: if the screenshot doesn't match the UI the user has, then it's much more difficult for the user to match what they see in the documentation to what they see on the screen.

Of course, if you have a translated UI, you don't have to have the screenshots translated as well: instead, I would simply get screenshots of the translated UI and include them.

As an aside, a related issue to the one RamonS brought up about translators not understanding the subject matter could rear its ugly head. If the translators for the text don't choose the same words as the translators for the UI, you could have a real mess. Some sort of communication about what words / phrases to use for each term and UI element is essential.

[kristil]

We use translated screenshots, and I definitely feel your pain. There are two improvements we're making to our process that are making this easier, though. First, we have become much more selective about where we include screenshots, which is also good for file size. Second, we're only sending changes out for translation, rather than the entire doc.

Inserting translated screenshots prior to sending the text for translation also helped our translator catch incorrect and inconsistent translations in the application. Although we have to include the funky translations in that iteration, they can be corrected in the next release.

[forfear]

Our screenshots aren't translated. Our diagrams taken in Visio however, have the accompanying captions, which can be translated and then reimported back into a Flare project. However, its been a tedious process and we don't do that. We leave the figures in the original English.

[RamonS]

And how is that received by customers? I only know which conclusions I would draw.

[forfear]

Translate everything including diagrams would be the ideal and right thing to do. after all it seems a bit awkard to have everything in its native language except diagrams, and captions i believe.

Here's a tip, translating figure captions is usually sufficient enough.

You will also want to take screenshots of the application in use in its translated language.

[ed_d]

We translate into over 20 languages, but leave the screenshots in English. We use numbers as call-outs, as these are more easily translated.

[forfear]

We translate into over 20 languages, but leave the screenshots in English. We use numbers as call-outs, as these are more easily translated.

that's a really clever tip.i have a new laserjet printer, which has absolute no installation or unpacking instructions. Its all in a sequence of pictures and diagrams and numbers..that's all no words.

[NorthEast]

I've produced guides that were translated in 16 languages, and the screenshots were localised in each language. We didn't think it was very professional to reuse the English ones, and as a user I don't think I'd like my English manual to have Hungarian screenshots.

What I would say is to consider when you use screenshots, and only use them when they add some real value for the reader. For example, I've seen guides that include screenshots of all the menus, which I think are utterly pointless - do your users really need to see what the menu looks like?

As a general rule I don't automatically include screenshots, and I only include them if I'm having trouble describing something in the text, or if I'm talking about an image (e.g. icon).

[forfear]

One Word....IKEA

[NickC]

One Word....IKEA

You mean do all our screenshots in Swedish? That'd be fun.

[RamonS]

No, the IKEA junk furniture comes with "instructions" that are composed only of drawings and pictograms that leave it up to the customer's imagination to be deciphered. Sure, saves a lot on translation expenses, but I don't think it bodes well for the customer experience.

[KevinDAmery]

Thing is Ikea's drawings are pretty good, though. The last few things I've bought from them (an expandable table and a couple of book cases) the drawings were easy to follow.

[kristil]

Yes, almost every time I am presented with instructions that are entirely pictures, I end up wishing for some text. There definitely needs to be a balance. I like a procedure with an accompanying, optional little video. Can't wait til my dept. is doing those!

[forfear]

Yes, almost every time I am presented with instructions that are entirely pictures, I end up wishing for some text. There definitely needs to be a balance. I like a procedure with an accompanying, optional little video. Can't wait til my dept. is doing those!

i agree with both of you, its just that i notice this trend, in products coming from Japan and the Nordic european countries. where even within europe a small region with so many languages spoken, so pictures might seem to be the logical thing to do to meet time to market pressures.

[RamonS]

That has nothing to do with time to market. They just don't want to pay the folks translating and editing that stuff. Why do you think MadCap Flare has no German help file for their German GUI version?
But then again, there are plenty of other examples where the manual is in 56 different languages. I cannot say how great the translations are, but in most cases effort and willingness to provide translations lets some glitches be forgiven. I think it all comes down to cost and at that point controllers and CFOs make the decision, not the support or customer service guys.

[German-user]

There are no MadCap German Help files and I can not use the German UI with the English Help files and English video tutorials. Btw -> 155 million people speak in German

The example with IKEA ( Excuse please) is great nonsense. The profit with this cheap scrap is enormous only for IKEA and not to the advantage of the customers.

Who will sell products in other countries with other languages, must also provide the necessary assistance. In the States each product must be in the national language described. Why think somebody, in other countries, this is not necessary?

[RamonS]

1) There are no MadCap German Help files and I can not use the German UI with the English Help files and English video tutorials.

I know! That is why I offered as interim replacement help and advice from this forum. I did not intent that to be a replacement for a German help file. I am not defending MadCap in any way. I, too, think that is a deficiency and back when the German version of Flare was released noted that as a flaw. At that time I looked at the beta version of the German UI and started writing up a whole bunch of issues. By the time I managed to get through the getting started wizard the unoptimized version was released.
I'd need to dig through these forums and find the thread that covered that, but I and others commented on the somewhat disappointing state of the German and also the other translations of Flare (some may be better than others). That said, I would have offered to translate the entire UI and the help, but by the time that would have come up the beta phase was over and the product released. And if I wouldn't already translate a Flare related document I'd offer my services to MadCap, especially since this time around the beta for the upcoming Flare version has a decent length.
I cannot speak for MadCap and their plans to revamp the entire UI / help translations to make them fit for international consumption. You need to complain to them and do so frequently and get your friends and colleagues in with that. Also, contact the distributor from where you got the Flare license and let them know.

2) The example with IKEA is great nonsense. The profit with this cheap scrap is enormous only for IKEA and not for the manufacturers of IKEA products.

Öhmmmm, that is exactly what I meant. You wrote it in a way that makes me believe you think I suggested otherwise. In IKEA's defence, they've come a long way. It used to be that their stuff was broken by the time you pulled it out of the shelf. Today you can bring it home and pray for the best. Still, their instruction sheets are a joke.

3) Who will sell products in other countries with other languages, must also provide the necessary assistance. In the States, France... each product must be in the national language described.

That is because France has strict laws that govern how products need to be documented in order to be sold in France. The good thing about this is that anything one does buy there is likely to have a somewhat decent documentation, but I guess for small companies that rather focus on markets that generate more bang for the buck doing business in France is then not interesting. As a software company I'd rather focus on English, Spanish, Chinese, then German and then French. There are also other consideration that come into play, mainly how much ROI does creating a translation generate and how much return is possible with selling the product as is. My guess is that MadCap's finance guys crunched the numbers, asked the German distributors, talked to some key experts in Germany and based on that concluded that a German UI of some sorts is OK enough to generate the sales that are expected to come from the German market.
Now that a year passed I am sure MadCap is looking back at this and figuring out if the forecast was somewhat accurate and if any correction of some sort is needed. I am convinced that the managers at MadCap don't take anything lightly and make decisions that make sense for their business. Often enough we users scratch our heads (as I did/do about the lack of native PDF output or the lack of ODF support), but when you look at the stellar success of Flare and MadCap as a company it is quite obvious that they did do most things very much right and may just have missed the bus on a few other things. And that may be selling a German version of Flare without a German help file.

[German-user]

Ramon , thank you and please understand my "Lumberjack English", not unkindly.
I have bought the MadCap products here in Germany and have very good help/support of my Reseller.
But I do not want to call and bother him every time, however, with every small question´s...the learning factor is very low for me.
He supported me during the cleanup of the X5 RoboHelp file...

We are in the same situation, we sell and make support for CAD software with German UI and English Help and video tutorials.
During some days "explodes" our Support phone ...with a better German help, we could sell the double amount in licenses.
Some months ago we have provided a small German help (with H & M) Now we want to provide a better German help with MadCap.

It is also no problem, I pay the first $ 1,000 for the German Flare online Help file.(I mean it seriously!)

[RamonS]

1000 bucks? Really? OK, I do it! MadCap...can someone send me the source files so that I can get going?

[German-user]

Ramon thats are great news!
Thank you for your kind offer!
Please send me the Bill about $ 1000

[RamonS]

Well, I think pay day is when the project is done. I sent an inquiry to MadCap about this, so let's see what happens in the coming days.