Usability evaluation of a translation memory system

Abstract

The use of Computer-Assisted Translation tools in translation classes has become a common practice for a little more than a decade. Even so, for students nowadays, the so-called digital natives, the teaching experience with this type of software is still far from being as easy as one would expect. This led us to ask ourselves what the real students’ attitudes were regarding the usability of software of this kind. This paper presents a usability evaluation for a leading desktop-based translation environment tool from the end user’s point of view. More specifically, the aim of the study was to assess the students’ perception of usability. For this purpose, at the end of two academic years, 95 senior students completed the Software Usability Measurement Inventory questionnaire, which is considered as a proven method for evaluating the usability of a software product. It measures five scales, i. e., Efficiency, Affect, Usefulness, Control, and Learnability. The analysis of the results obtained suggests that the students’ opinion about the global usability of the tool under evaluation is within the average, but not so much with regard to its learnability, which is the worst-rated scale. The only scale above average was Affect. These results show that greater emphasis is needed on the design of the tool evaluated in order to adapt to the real needs of users and actually improve the technological savvy of our translation students.