Global Talk

By Geoff Hart, Associate Fellow, Montreal Chapter

I first realized I had a problem with this language thing when I returned to my hometown of Montreal in 1993, after many years spent in the English monoculture of Ontario. Quebec is a primarily French province, and although there’s a large English community in Montreal, Montrealers tend to communicate in a tasty mixture of French and English known as franglais (from francais for French and anglais for English). The local dialect of colloquial French is known as joual—a mispronunciation of cheval, which means horse (i.e., the worker’s language). You’ll have to hold most of a bagel (another Montreal specialty) in your mouth as you pronounce cheval to see how it transforms into joual. Add to this the disconcerting tendency of Montrealers to switch promiscuously between English, French, franglais, and joual at the drop of a preposition, depending on which idiom is most suitable at any given moment, and you can imagine my linguistic disorientation.

Just when I was beginning to cope, I took on the role of technical writer for my employer and had to learn to speak fluent Geek—in a mixture of the abovementioned languages, of course. My favorite “lost in translation” anecdote is about the time I had to explain to a French developer why my loss of an entire morning’s work qualified as a bug in his software; to him, a bug was a calculation error. It took some ingenuity and judicious use of my then-nascent intercultural skills to express the real problem in a way that made sense to him.

In 2002, I traveled China as one member of a delegation specifically setting out to engage in jiao liu, an exchange of ideas (I’ll spare you the complexities of pinyin accents). Having decided at the last possible minute to participate, and now vastly overconfident in my linguistic skills after nearly a decade back in the linguistic melée that is Quebec, I engaged in a crash course to learn enough Chinese to be passably polite to my hosts. I’d reckoned without the difficulty of learning a tonal language after having spent some 40 years as a largely tone-deaf anglophone. It was a delight to watch the smiles of pleasure (or possibly polite and diplomatic amusement) on the faces of my hosts when I greeted them and introduced myself in fluent Chinese—and their outright incomprehension when, having now proven that I was a fluent speaker of Mandarin, I told them that wo bu shuo Zhongwen (”I really don’t speak Chinese—I’m just a very polite trained parrot”). I never did master how to ask for tea: every time I asked for cha, the waitress handed me a fork (also a cha, but with different tonality). Possibly it was just lack of motivation, since I quickly mastered how to request more piejou (beer). I look forward with mingled delight and dread to my proposed trip to India this December; though I hope to become equally polite in Hindi, I fear that I’ll remain entirely incomprehensible in the other 14+ regional Indian languages.

Then there’s that whole embarrassing Martian versus Venusian translation, as explained in John Gray’s “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.” After 40 years of practice, I’m still working on it, and hope to someday communicate almost as well as I do in English. There are no guarantees in life, of course, but I have some hope of success. After all, I earn my living as an editor and translator, so evidence notwithstanding, I have some pretensions of skill with words. On the other hand…. Mars? Venus? That whole War of the Worlds thing is awfully intimidating, and I can’t just blame Spielberg.

After 20 years as an editor, I’m convinced that I’m not alone in these problems. If you learn nothing else along the way, editing quickly teaches you how difficult it is to translate concepts that originate in the squishy stuff that lies between an author’s ears into words that will mostly convey the same meaning when transferred into the very different squishy stuff between the reader’s ears. So I figure, on this evidence, we should relax and not worry about internationalization, localization, and translation. It’s clear to me that the real problem is communication per se. Lick that problem and the rest will fall neatly into place. In the meantime, we can reconcile ourselves that information is always and inevitably lost in translation. What counts is the effort we make to minimize that loss.

When conversing with a friend the other day, he said that technical documents are not like magazines or comic books that can keep users engaged. They are only meant to be read when required. He is correct, but wait! He mentioned comics. Hmm…technical documentation as comics, I thought.

I did not answer, but that set my mind moving. I have always been curious to find out how end-users go through our technical documents, and to be honest, I am sometimes dismayed at their approach to reading the documentation. I have always wanted to find out an approach of making technical documentation livelier. This article of mine is based on the research and feedback that I have received from numerous writing and design specialists on how to engage technical document users in a natural dialogue.

How it Started

I read an article by Rebekah Sedaca entitled “Comics: Not just for Laughs!” (http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/comics-not-just-for), where she suggests using comics to capture reader interest, advance understanding, and utilize the knowledge in purchasing. Her ultimate objective is to use comics as a medium of communication wherein complex thoughts are broken into simpler tones for various audiences. Great, I thought.  We deal with a lot of technical topics that are complex and difficult to explain; a medium like comics could contribute to the purpose of simplifying technical documentation without eliminating the fun factor.

Benefits of This Approach

Many people say that technical documentation is not supposed to be fun. That is exactly what I am trying to refute. Almost 50% of technical documents lie on shelves. Some are untouched; and, some documents are read whenever its need arises. If  documents are being wasted, can we try something new? What is the harm in making it interesting? Disregarding opinions in opposition of my idea, I started working on it. I considered developing a chat messenger to help writers use the comic techniques, and I decided to create an online help guide on how to use this messaging system.

Problems with This Approach

The following are some of the common problems with using comics in technical documents:

• Comics or cartoon characters can be interpreted in different ways. What may seem creative to the designer/writer could be offensive to the reader.
• A lot of thought needs to go into every aspect. For example, the customs, nationality of the character, dress, and dialogue may be viewed differently by individual readers.
• For technical documents, if the information needs to be corrected, that can be done easily. If incorrect information is presented through a comic, the time and cost to change it will be too great.

• Kids like comic art. Adults like it only if it is witty. We do not want our documentation to be witty, do we? We want it to be informative. Even if we make an informative comic, an adult reader may ask, “Why are they doing this to me? I just want to quickly learn how to do a particular thing, not view a cartoon strip.”
• When viewed for the second time, a cartoon or comic strip loses its charm. If users want to refer to a technical document again, they may be very frustrated to see the same comic a second time, even if they liked it initially.
• Printing costs will increase substantially.
• Translation will be an issue.
Suggestions from the Experts

I pitched my idea to several design and writing professionals, and they suggested the following ideas: 

• Analysis of the interaction between audience, content and the drawing style should be done before starting the writing. The mindset of using the comic style could trivialize the material or it must only be used for humor. Therefore, to avoid confusion, documentation must be entirely done in either the comic style or a more serious style. This initial analysis is pretty similar to technical writers working on a documentation analysis before setting up to start with the first draft.
• The panel structure of comic art is also a nice way to show a sequence of actions because the time concept is built into the design pattern. Using a comics style also allows the artist to over-exaggerate critical details or to adjust the view to make small details easier to see.
• Comics might also be an effective way to engage readers who might not typically turn to a book for instruction. For example, the United States Army using the comic book style for heavy equipment manuals and service bulletins could be an effective way of communicating with the mechanics in the maintenance departments.
• The critical factor here is to understand the users and the context of use and to make design decisions that enhance usability (for the appropriate people trying to meet their goals. This is similar to the awareness of end-users in technical documentation.
• Understanding the culture and mapping it into technical documentation is one of the critical factors in making the document useful.
• Anything that reduces cognitive overhead in communication is welcome. Whatever the medium, usability testing to check on the deliverables is recommended.

Development

I am developing an online help website wherein I am using comics as an interactive medium. On successful completion of it, I will be forwarding it to my colleagues and listening to their responses. Using comics for interactive learning is worth a try. Whether it will work or not would be something to watch out for in the days to come.
– Rajdeep Gupta is a writer with Infosys Technologies and is currently the Bangalore STC City Representative. He has more than three years of work experience in Technical Documentation and Usability Testing. He is the Assistant Organizer of the Bangalore Technical Writers Meetup group and a quizmaster. You can browse through his blog for a collection of his writings http://coloredwritings.blogspot.com/

The second quarter issue of Carolina Communique, newsletter of the Carolina Chapter, has published “E-Globalization” by Sharmila M. Govindarajan. The article is Sharmila’s final project for completion of the Duke University Continuing Studies in Technical Communication Certificate program.

The Silicon Valley chapter has published “So, What is Linguistic Quality?” by Francoise Spurling of Rubric, in the May, 2007 issue of the Connection newsletter: http://www.stc-siliconvalley.org/newsletter/HTML/articles/spurling-linguistic-quality.htm

Thanks to Rhonda Bracey for the link to a January 24, 2007 article by Pamela Slim, “How not to be a cultural knucklehead in a global business world.” The comments are worthwhile reading too.

By Becky Lash, Member Huntsville/North Alabama chapter, CIC and IDL SIGs

I work with customers from several different countries.  Usually these customers arrive by personal reference. I have found my perception of a country’s cultural values might or might not be accurate. I’ve found certain approaches work whatever my preconceived ideas of the cultural values of a nationality–or gender, for that matter. These approaches seem to work with customers from any country, including the USA. (more…)

by Michael Whitman, Senior Member Northern New England chapter and ITC SIG

Translation should no longer be an afterthought… ever. Companies gain a competitive advantage when all writers employ a clear, simple, “global” style of English.

As manager of translation projects, I used to spend a lot of time “editing for translation” instruction manuals and marketing brochures whose English had been created without sensitivity for the needs of the translation process.

After I began working “upstream” with document writers, teaching what was difficult for our translators in our English documents, I needed to edit less and less.

In any company, however, there are always new folks who need to learn, so I have developed two pages of the most frequently needed changes. Often writers only need be made aware of these points, to improve their text so it is more “world-ready.”

These suggestions may also be helpful for some newer technical writers, since clear, unambiguous text serves well as a communication medium, whether or not it will be translated.

Here are the tips I developed: (more…)

By Susan Ng, Senior Member Long Island Chapter and ITC SIG

Susan provided this summary of a discussion on the ITC SIG email list on August 8. 2006. It is published here by permission of the author.

In close to 15 responses, the overwhelming majority of list members suggested having the translations done in Universal Spanish, that is, a form of Latin American Spanish that has been genericized to accommodate the variations in the language spoken in that part of the world. (more…)

Karen Mardahl provided the information in this article assembled by Global Talk. The information is from the 19 June 2006 issue of IST Results (news from the EU Information Society Technologies program) in an article titled “A common approach to accessibility for all.”

The article discusses efforts to harmonize the methodologies for achieving the goal of accessible websites. These efforts include: (more…)

This information was assembled by Global Talk from posts on the International Technical Communication SIG email list in April, 2006 and from additional research.

ASD Simplified Technical English is a specification developed by a committee that has an official website. This is a project of the AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe. There are two specific articles available, explaining the types of software that can be used in writing Simplified Technical English and training to write in STE.  (more…)