Section Translation Post-Improvements Testing
Thai Wikipedia
Overview
The primary goal of this project was to evaluate the general usability of the Section Translation experience and workflow, including a number of recent improvements. In particular, what are the main points of friction that may in part or fully prevent editors from making successful contributions. Moderated research sessions with 17 participants using a smartphone allowed an opportunity for existing Thai Wikipedia editors to use Section Translation to translate and publish real wiki content. Sessions also included targeted questions throughout the task observation, as well as pre- and post-task questions. In addition to the main Section Translation workflow, the project evaluated a recently implemented entry point, and one other entry point concept in the form of a clickable prototype.
Top High Level Takeaways:
Overall, Section Translation was perceived by the participants who are current Thai Wikipedia Editors as a simple tool for newcomers and people with average editing markup skills. They perceived the overall process as straightforward and easy to follow, but faced difficulty with discovery, relevant suggestions, publishing with confidence, and lack of a Source Editor option. Some important challenges and points of friction include the following:
- Current entry points lack discoverability
- Current suggestions (suggested articles and sections) do not complement the interests of editors
- Publishing options aren't easy to locate, thus making editors want to leave the process
- Experienced editors prefer the Source Editor interface
As for potential newcomers (multilingual web users with experience creating content and using translation, but not currently registered Wikipedia editors and with no extensive coding experience), Section Translation was perceived as a complicated tool. The overall experience is logical, but they could not associate many of the interface options with their intended functions. They think that the UI should provide a clear direction so that they better understand the task. Many of the specific points of friction and challenges noted were similar to those faced by experienced editors. Notable differences were that the process of reviewing the source and target article was more challenging for newcomers. Specifically, they didn't understand how to accomplish the task in this process, in part because they struggled to compare the different language versions of the article. Secondly, newcomers had difficulty understanding UI. And, third, the tutorial did not provide sufficient instruction regarding the usage and process of the tool.
Findings