A world of surprises What Google learned from

A world of surprises What Google learned from Russia about writing for translation Jon Ann Lindsey User experience writer jonann@google. com @Editor. JA

Agenda ● Research: Listening to users ● Writing, voice, and tone: Lessons from Russia ● Humor: Don’t make us laugh ● Needless words: Reassurances create anxiety ● Writing tips

Google consumer help centers ● support. google. com ● 6, 000+ articles ● 65 help centers ● 6 B page views/year ● Translated into 44 languages ● 60% international traffic

Research: Listening to users

Assessing language quality ● Correct ● Like written by a friendly, knowledgeable native speaker

Assessing language quality ● Correct ● Like written by a friendly, knowledgeable native speaker ● Accomplish a task or ● Answer a question quickly and efficiently

Assessing language quality ● Correct ● Like written by a friendly, knowledgeable native speaker ● Accomplish a task ● Competently written or ● Jargon-free ● Answer question quickly and efficiently ● Meet targets for voice, tone, and reading level.

Away we went! 1. Brazil 2. Dubai 3. France 4. Germany 5. Indonesia 6. Italy 7. Japan 8. Mexico 9. Russia 10. Spain 11. Thailand

Moscow reviewers Copywriter Major ad agency in Moscow Blogger/writer Health care, sociology, online magazines Website editor Online educational service, Ph. D. candidate Journalist International and Russian media

Research expectation “Let’s figure out what’s wrong with the translation process. ”

Research reality Half or more of our translation problems originated in the English source content.

Writing: Lessons from Russia

Write shorter, more natural sentences “The expression is unnecessarily long, sounds unnatural and too formal. The capital in Вы (formal You) is not needed. ” The refund will be returned to the payment method you used. Средства будут зачислены на счет, с помощью которого Вы совершили покупку.

Write shorter, more natural sentences “The expression is unnecessarily long, sounds unnatural and too formal. The capital in Вы (formal You) is not needed. ” The refund will be returned to the payment method you used. Средства будут зачислены на счет, с помощью которого Вы совершили покупку. The refund will go to the account you paid with. Средства будут зачислены на счет, с которого вы совершили покупку.

Be friendly, not legal “In Russian, it sounds like you’ve been detained by the police. ” Your account was temporarily suspended while we verify your identity. European regulations require us to take these steps anytime someone reaches certain transaction limits. Мы заблокировали Ваш аккаунт на время подтверждения Вашей личности. Согласно европейскому законодательству мы обязаны сделать это, если Вы выполнили транзакцию на сумму, превышающую установленный лимит.

Active voice, not passive “Passive voice obfuscates meaning. This is how government communications are written – like someone is trying to trick you. ” “Instead of “File has been deleted by the attachment monitor” make active: ‘The attachment monitor deleted the file. ’”

Humor: Don’t make us laugh

A playful touch picture template

picture template Image © CC-BY-SA

Success rate? Zero. нуль. Nula.

“The idea of the help center is to make users’ life easier. Others can provide entertainment. ”

“Maybe this joke works in English, but I didn’t find it funny. ”

“I don’t think I saw a single place where humor would make an article better. Keep in mind that Russians are very serious. ”

Needless words: Reassurances create anxiety

‘Unnecessary and frustrating’ Don’t worry, none of your data has been lost. It’s just in a new place.

“I wasn’t worried until you said, ‘Don’t worry. ’”

Starting a sentence with ‘Don’t worry’ can cause stress. ”

“Unnecessary and frustrating. It’s being intrusive by making assumptions about the reader’s feelings. ”

Most unexpected of all

A cultural blind spot Remember that Google will never ask for your password.

“‘Remember that’ is wording we all associate with Soviet propaganda. It has no role to play in modern communications. ”

“It reeks of our Soviet heritage. We all remember those posters. ”

What we did

EN source Implement effective quality controls that reflect existing guidelines.

EN source Style guides Implement effective quality controls that reflect existing guidelines. Enhance languagespecific style guides for the specific needs of support content. Add guidance on Anglicisms

EN source Style guides Quality control Implement effective quality controls that reflect existing guidelines. Enhance languagespecific style guides for the specific needs of support content. Ensure target compliance with L 10 N guidelines that have been revised to reflect support needs. Add guidance on Anglicisms

Source improvements Re-emphasize existing help-center style guidelines We had guidelines for most issues, but needed to enforce them more activel ● ● ● Active voice Sentence length Conciseness Friendly, conversational tone Avoid jargon

Source improvements New entries to EN style guide Added localization-related guidelines ● Try to avoid modal verbs, “may” and “might” ● Decrease repetition in articles and headings ● Simplify technical terms even further; many “simple” terms aren’t understood

Source improvements Targeted trainings for writers and editors ● Reducing repetition ● Avoiding jargon ● Writing shorter sentences

Source improvements Targeted trainings for writers and editors ● Reducing repetition ● Avoiding jargon ● Writing shorter sentences

Localization improvements Russian help center style guide ● ● Updated voice and tone section to emphasize simplicity, clarity Added examples of simple/easy/friendly tone Added suggestions for more “humane” style Reviewed guidelines with translation vendors All locales ● Added help-specific section to style guides ● Updated readability guidelines (natural word order, use of gerunds/imperatives, etc. ) ● Focus on core message/readability if word-for-word translation is confusing ● Updated glossary with accepted Anglicisms and local terms

Results Over following 3 quarters: ● One-time review of top content: 600 articles in 11 locales ● Fixed approx. 600 errors per locale ● Decreased L 10 n errors per article by 70%

What you can do

Help clients help you Word swaps access (verb) find, see, get to browser, like Chrome or Safari CAPTCHA Type the code Configure Set up Drop-down menu Down arrow Enable, disable Turn on, turn off hover place your cursor over malware Harmful software; unwanted software pop-up window that appears Push notification Alert, notification Sign-in credentials Username and password support work with Third-party apps Apps made by other companies URL web address

Break long sentences into 2 Breaking up long sentences has a huge impact on readability. For these examples, the only change was to turn one sentence into two. Google aims for 7 th-grade reading level (age 12 -13). 37 words U. S. reading grade level 14 17 words and 19 words U. S. reading grade level 7. 6 Clearing your browser’s cache and cookies means that website settings (like usernames and passwords) will be deleted and some sites might appear to be a little slower because all of the images have to be loaded again. Clearing your browser’s cache and cookies means that website settings (like usernames and passwords) will be deleted. Some sites might appear to be a little slower because all of the images have to be loaded again.

Break long sentences into 2 Breaking up long sentences has a huge impact on readability. For these examples, the only change was to turn one sentence into two. Google aims for 7 th-grade reading level (age 12 -13). 28 words U. S. reading grade level 14 13 words and 14 words U. S. reading grade level 7. 5 This is an easy way to check the position of a single ad, and the tool provides the same results as a Google search without accumulating any impressions. This is an easy way to check the position of a single ad. The tool provides the same results as a Google search without accumulating any impressions.

Cut extra words Extraneous words get in the way and make sentences harder to understand. ● Only one idea per sentence. ● Read sentences out loud. If you have a hard time understanding, readers probably will too. ● Consider using lists instead of multiple clauses. ● Use a readability tool (Flesch-Kincaid for EN). If you want to remove such a photo To remove a photo from the album archive completely, archive, delete it from: you should delete it from both places: the private folder and the ● The private folder blog album in the Album Archive. ● The blog album

Cut extra words Extraneous words get in the way and make sentences harder to understand. ● Only one idea per sentence. ● Read sentences out loud. If you have a hard time understanding, readers probably will too. ● Consider using lists instead of multiple clauses. ● Use a readability tool (Flesch-Kincaid for EN). If you want to remove such a photo To remove a photo from the album archive completely, archive, delete it from: you should delete it from both places: the private folder and the ● The private folder blog album in the Album Archive. ● The blog album

Avoid repetition In most countries Google visited, repetitiveness in English turned out to be the biggest contributor to confusion in translation. But it didn’t just cause confusion – it made users feel like we were talking down to them (especially in Russia. ) Add another email account to the Gmail app You can read and send mail from most email addresses using the Gmail app on Android. Instead of forwarding your mail, you can add that account to the Gmail app Add an account to the Gmail app You can use the Gmail app with your other email addresses.

Avoid repetition In most countries Google visited, repetitiveness in English turned out to be the biggest contributor to confusion in translation. But it didn’t just cause confusion – it made users feel like we were talking down to them (especially in Russia. ) Apps connected to your account Edit the apps connected to your account On the Apps connected to your account page, you can see a list of sites and applications. These are sites and applications to which you’ve granted permission to access your Google Account, and you can see on this list to what parts of your account they have access. You can let sites or applications connect to your Google Account. Go to myaccount. google. com/permissions to: ● See what account info an app can access ● Remove a connected app

Repetition strategies A few strategies: ● Delete extra words ● Use pronouns ● Reword the sentence All sites included in Google News should follow Google News’ quality guidelines. All sites included in Google News should follow our quality guidelines.

Repetition strategies Delete extra words All sites included in Google News should follow Google News’ quality guidelines. All sites included in Google News should follow our quality guidelines.

Repetition strategies Use pronouns If you share your private folder, anyone with full access can change its sharing change the sharing settings of your settings. private folder.

Repetition strategies Rewrite "Unusual traffic from your computer network" If devices on your network seem to You'll see an error message if it looks be sending automated traffic to like your network is getting an unusual Google, you might see "Our amount of traffic. systems have detected unusual traffic from your computer network. "

Takeaways Analyzing translated content improved content quality in target languages AND English source Concise writing can prevent errors and cultural missteps Russia taught us to be much more thoughtful about making every word count

Thank you! Questions? jonann@google. com