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Translation services in interviews
My team recently completed a set of non-English interviews in Beijing, Moscow, Munich, Paris, Seoul, and Tokyo. To facilitate these meetings, our client arranged translators. Having one was indispensible, but it cost time; and more time than we initially thought.
Serial translation cuts time in half
Most of the translators we used spoke serially, waiting for the speaker to finish his or her thought before translating. Different languages compress at different rates, but on the whole, it cut content time roughly in half; for an hour of clock time, we could get in a little over 30 minutes of Q&A. You can compensate for this by asking richer questions, but be prepared for more synthesis of what you heard afterwards. Alternatively, you can ask for a little more time for the interview than you normally would. We did a little of both.
Multiple interviewees can further erode efficiency
In companies and cultures with deep respect for their hierarchy (or a biding interest that the "right" things be said) we would be interviewing two or three people at a time, i.e. an information worker and a supervisor or two. To be polite, we tried to make sure and ask everyone in the room some questions, but this threatened to slow things down too much. Once we identified the right person, we focused our questions there.
Limit your vocabulary to avoid confusion
Since we were hearing interpreted answers to our interpreted questions, we took special care to ask after what might have been tricky vocabulary words or culturally-dependent phrases. This, too, added a bit of time for the sake of clarity. Still, some answers took us by surprise.
For example, when we asked one fellow if he had internet access at work, he said no. Then when he later mentioned that he would use a search engine to answer questions he had, we asked what his connection speed was at home. He clarified that this was at work, and what he meant before what that he doesn't use the internet for personal reasons at work. To avoid crossed wires, you may need to ask critical questions in a number of different ways, and this takes additional time.
Buy some time back with earpieces
Our Tokyo translator provided earpieces, and I can't recommend them enough. While our interviewees were speaking, she would translate simultaneously, speaking softly into a small microphone she held. This near-instantaneous translation saved us some time, allowed us to establish rapport by looking at the interviewees faces, and allowed us to connect their gestures and expressions to what they were saying. Though they cost a bit extra, we highly recommend them. Plus it doesn't hurt that you get to look like a better-dressed CIA agent for a little while.
Does anyone else have good advice or experiences to share about working with translators?
Filed under: Methods, Research
Chris Noessel
Chris Noessel is a senior consultant at Cooper. His industry experience ranges from owning a small, museum-focused company in Houston to working with Microsoft's futures prototyping group in Seattle. For marchFIRST he was Director of Information Architecture, conducting research and design for notable web sites such as Apple, SEGA, and Harmon Kardon. He was one of the founding graduates of the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea.
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Comments
And a few others from the same research trip:
Eye contact, it's still a conversation
When the interviewee was speaking even though they were speaking a language I couldn't understand if I was the lead interviewer I tried to make eye contact as if we were in a normal conversation. This subtle connection helped reinforce that I was doing the interview, not the translator. I actively tried to avoid having a conversation with the translator, as much of the nuance of the in-person interview is in the eye contact and physical expression.
Translate everything
Really good translators translate everything that is being said, even if it's a sidebar with the translator or another college in the room. This gives the interviewer a much deeper understanding of what questions are not working and why, and allows for earlier quicker restatements or clarifications - again saving time. Not all translators do this. We noticed this and began to ask them to translate everything, allowing us to always remain in the conversation.
Pacing for notes
When a conversation is being translated the normal gaps in conversations are lost. Some interviewees go for a long time before allowing the translator a chance to give us the English version. On one hand this gives time to complete thoughts from the last round. What we frequently found is that translators were focused on delivering what they just heard just as quickly as they can. Because we were trying to take notes this is a difficult way to gather information. The translator can speak in a stream-of-consciousness for two minutes with no gaps in between ideas - this makes for cramped hands and frantic hard to read notes with little or no on the fly hierarchy or order. If at all possible explain before the interview to the translator what the ideal pace is for translation, or you may find yourself asking for them repeat what they said in your effort to get more complete notes.
Nice post!
One approach to tranlation that I found didn't work for me was having the interview carried out in the local language, and translating the whole thing live from the viewing room.
The translation tended to be out of sync - at different amounts at different points in time. Plus, one translator was doing both people's voices - so it was very hard to keep track of who was talking and what thing on screen they were actually referring to.
One tip I'd give when evaluating a prototype internationally would be to check out alexa.com before you go and find out what the local competition look like. Designs that resemble what the locals are familiar with tend to get a big halo effect - and for good reason.
Hi Chris, Welcome home!
These are useful tips! Wish we had earpieces when we did our last round of international interviews.
Can you add a few words about how you worked with the translator? We found it helpful to meet with him or her before and talk about our intentions for the interview and the information we were trying to uncover.
Were you doing conversational interviews? To save time, our interviews with a translator were conducted off a script, we had all our questions sequenced and worked out in advance. We left some time at the end for clarifying questions.
We also found it helpful schedule the international (non English) interviews after we'd done some fieldwork in English speaking countries so we were aware of the major patterns before we went out. The international interviews were more clarifying and confirming than foundational.
Thanks!