Usability as a focus of multiprofessional collaboration: a teaching case study on user-centered translation

摘要

As professional communication needs are increasingly multilingual, the merging ofudtranslator and technical communicator roles has been predicted. However, it may beudmore advantageous for these two professional groups to increase cooperation. Thisudmeans learning to identify and appreciate their distinct but mutually complementary coreudcompetencies. Since both professions share the ideology of being the user’s advocate,udusability is a common denominator that can function as a focal point of collaboration.udWhile many translation theories focus on the reader and the target context, usabilityudmethods have not traditionally been a part of translator training. An innovation calledudUser-Centered Translation (UCT), which is a model based on usability and user-centereduddesign, is intended to help translators speak the same language as technicaludcommunicators, and it offers concrete usability tools which have been missing fromudtranslation theories. In this teaching case study, we discuss the teaching of four UCTudmethods: personas, the implied reader, heuristic evaluation, and usability testing. Weuddescribe our teaching experiences, analyze student feedback on all four, and report onudthe implementation of a student assignment on heuristics. This case study suggests waysudin which UCT can form an important nexus of professional skills and multiprofessionaludcollaboration.