The impact of text presentation on translator performance

Samuel Läubli, Patrick Simianer, Joern Wuebker, Geza Kovacs, Rico Sennrich, Spence Green

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Widely used computer-aided translation (CAT) tools divide documents into segments such as sentences and arrange them in a side-by-side, spreadsheet-like view. We present the first controlled evaluation of these design choices on translator performance, measuring speed and accuracy in three experimental text processing tasks. We find significant evidence that sentence-by-sentence presentation enables faster text reproduction and with in-sentence error identification compared to unsegmented text, and that a top-and-bottom arrangement of source and target sentences enables faster text reproduction compared to a side-by-side arrangement. For revision, on the other hand, our results suggest that presenting unsegmented text results in the highest accuracy and time efficiency. Our findings have direct implications for best practices in designing CAT tools.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)309-342
Number of pages34
JournalTarget: International Journal of Translation Studies
Volume34
Issue number2
Early online date23 Nov 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 4 May 2022

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • user interface
  • productivity
  • human-computer interaction
  • computer-aided translation
  • text presentation

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