Re: Screen captures in multiple lanaguages or just in English? was, "RE: Examples of Minimalist Writing"

[beelia <beelia -at- gmail -dot- com>]

The approach in my company is to leave all technical terms in English, and
translate everything else. But we have large applications that are installed
on special hardware, so even using that approach is going to pose some big
challenges - we're not going to be shipping those machines to Ireland, or
anywhere else the translators are located, so they will essentially be
working from the property files. Including screenshots and buttons/icons in
the documentation could be especially useful under those circumstances, but
is also problematic.

I'm thinking maximizing usability for English speakers by including
drop-down screenshots in the English version of my Flare project, then
stripping out all those screenshots en masse with a VI editor by keying on
the drop-down source code for all the non-English projects before taking
them to Lingo. Hopefully, that would be helpful but non-essential
information for the English users, and would avoid (cringe) the problem for
non-English speakers.

But if I screw up, and the screenshots have essential instead of
supplementary information in the translated projects, users might perceive
that some information is missing. And because I don't speak the language, I
couldn't proofread the result.

It's a very slippery slope - I'm not sure if I should even try it. It's
probably not very sensitive to global users anyway.

But this discussion is really helpful. I can foresee some major potholes,
and by kicking it around with you guys, get some ideas on how to avoid them.

Bee


On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 12:43 PM, Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> wrote:

> The case that comes most immediately to mind (since In Leonard's
> description the
> button screencaps are in English in all versions of the docs) is one in
> which
> docs are being translated but the actual UI is not.  This is a fairly
> common
> occurrence in many industrial, scientific and other environments where
> English
> is the "standard" even for users in non-English-speaking countries.
>
> Gene Kim-Eng
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Robert Lauriston" <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>
> >Is there any situation where placing a picture of a button is more
> >useful than simply typing the text (which is much faster and cheaper
> >to translate)?
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
> Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
> 2009 tips, tricks, and best practices.
> http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
>
> Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
> authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
> once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control!
> http://www.helpandmanual.com/
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as beelia -at- pacbell -dot- net -dot- 
>
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> or visit
> http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/beelia%40pacbell.net
>
>
> To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>
> Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
> http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.
>
> Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
> http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat
>
>
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help  
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices.
http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/

Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info. 

Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat