On The Usability Of Computer-Aided Translation Tools

Due to the development of technology and economic globalization, there is a rapid increase in the volume of translation, particularly technical translation such as engineering documents and technical manuals. However, the demands made on the translator do not show any pace of abating. Therefore, in order to meet the new demands and become competitive, the translator needs to adapt to change. The use of CAT (computer-aided translation) software enables the translator to improve considerably both the quality and the efficiency of translation.Usability is an important attribute in measuring software quality. It is used to evaluate whether the software is easy to use, efficient and effective. CAT software applications, as human-computer interaction software applications, their usability will have a direct effect on translators’ user experience and satisfaction.This paper adopts usability testing experiments to evaluate two common CAT software applications, namely, Trados and Wordfast Anywhere. In the experiment, four English-major postgraduate students (two novice users and two expert users) from Zhejiang Normal University are invited as test users to perform a series of specific tasks using these two CAT software applications. Then, after observing, recording and analyzing the related data, this paper evaluates their usability scores from aspects of learnability, memorability, errors, efficiency and satisfaction.Firstly, learnability is measured in two dimensions, the degree of resemblance between the workspace of CAT software and Microsoft Word, and the time experienced by two novice users from they started to watch the teaching video to the completion of the tasks. The results show that the learnability of Wordfast Anywhere is better than that of Trados. Secondly, efficiency is assessed by the time taken to complete a series of specific tasks by two expert users using two CAT software applications. It turns out that Wordfast Anywhere is more efficient than Trados. Thirdly, to assess memorability, novice users were asked to do a second test after a week of not using these two CAT software applications. By comparing the ratio of time difference to the total time of the first test, it turns out that Wordfast Anywhere is more memorable than Trados. Fourthly, in relation to errors, the author calculates the error rates for Trados and Wordfast Anywhere by dividing the total time into the total number of errors. The results show that the error rate of Wordfast Anywhere is slightly higher than that of Trados. Fifthly, as for satisfaction, users were asked to fill in two questionnaires (one for Trados one for Wordfast Anywhere) after the test. The results indicate that novice users tend to be more satisfied with Wordfast while expert users are generally more satisfied with Trados. Considering the above five assessment results, the author draws the conclusion that Wordfast Anywhere has higher usability than Trados.This paper evaluates CAT software from the perspective of usability. It is of great theoretical significance to guide the practice of CAT software evaluation and practical significance to improve the quality of CAT software.