| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Searching for people to participate in my survey on the usability of certain CAT tools Thread poster: Vanessa Drexler
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Dear translators,
within the limits of my bachelor thesis this year at the University of Technology in Chemnitz (Germany), I am currently doing a survey on software usability with regard to translation tools. This is why I would like to cordially ask you for your participation. This survey addresses all translators who work / have experience with either SDL Trados Studio 2011, Across v5.0, Wordfast or XTM. The questionnaire consists of 5 x 10 rather general questions about your sati... See more Dear translators,
within the limits of my bachelor thesis this year at the University of Technology in Chemnitz (Germany), I am currently doing a survey on software usability with regard to translation tools. This is why I would like to cordially ask you for your participation. This survey addresses all translators who work / have experience with either SDL Trados Studio 2011, Across v5.0, Wordfast or XTM. The questionnaire consists of 5 x 10 rather general questions about your satisfaction with the translation tools as well as it is about working processes and the handling of the tools. It will not take you more than 15-20 min of your precious time to fill out the questionnaire.
The aim of this survey is to find out with which of the above-mentioned translation tools:
a) most translators work
b) translators are the most satisfied
c) translators think they can work most efficiently.
For participation in this online survey please use the following link:
English Version: http://sumi.ucc.ie/en/
German Version: http://sumi.ucc.ie/de/
and enter the corresponding password at the top of the questionnaire:
309EQ --> SDL Trados Studio 2011
225WA --> Across v5.0
302EX --> Wordfast
287CQ --> XTM
By the way, if you work with more than one of these translation tools, you can of course fill out the questionnaire more often than only once (4 times at the maximum – once per translation tool / password).
For further information or questions please do not hesitate to contact me!
[email protected]
With many thanks in advance and kind regards!
Vanessa Drexler ▲ Collapse
| | | | | MetaTexis is missing | Jul 18, 2012 |
Hello Vanessa,
why is MetaTexis for Word not included in the survey (besides some others)?
Kind regards
Hermann
| | | | | some restrictions are unavoidable | Jul 18, 2012 |
I would love to include more CAT tools than these, but I got a page restriction of 40 pages (since this is only a bachelor thesis), and the translation agency I am writing my thesis for is only / especially interested in these four tools. So, maybe next time 
[Edited at 2012-07-18 18:19 GMT]
| | | | | Too vague (Wordfast) | Jul 19, 2012 |
Vanessa Drexler wrote:
This is why I would like to cordially ask you for your participation. This survey addresses all translators who work / have experience with either SDL Trados Studio 2011, Across v5.0, Wordfast or XTM.
You specify a clear version for the first two products, but only the product name for the last two. This probably doesn't matter much in the case of XTM, but in the case of Wordfast, it could be any of the following: Classic, Professional, Anywhere, which are three separate tools. It's as if you had specified "Trados", which could mean any of Trados Workbench, TagEditor, Studio, SDLX or even Passolo.
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| you made a good point | Jul 19, 2012 |
Actually it is not that important for me whether a translator works with Wordfast Professional / Classic / Anywhere / Server, since all of the four versions are from Wordfast and are not extremely different from each other. The same is true for XTM Cloud Freelance / Small Group / LSP. Aside from that I do not have the time to do so either. I just want to analyze the current version(s) of each software.
So let me specify my statement by distinguishing between SDL Trados Studio 2011,... See more Actually it is not that important for me whether a translator works with Wordfast Professional / Classic / Anywhere / Server, since all of the four versions are from Wordfast and are not extremely different from each other. The same is true for XTM Cloud Freelance / Small Group / LSP. Aside from that I do not have the time to do so either. I just want to analyze the current version(s) of each software.
So let me specify my statement by distinguishing between SDL Trados Studio 2011, Across v5.0, Wordfast 5.5 and XTM Cloud 6.2 ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Current versions of Wordfast | Jul 19, 2012 |
Vanessa Drexler wrote:
Actually it is not that important for me whether a translator works with Wordfast Professional / Classic / Anywhere / Server, since all of the four versions are from Wordfast and are not extremely different from each other.
Well, they are quite different IMO: Classic works as a Word add-on, Pro is a standalone application with its own environment, Anywhere is an online (browser-based) version. Wordfast Server is not relevant here, since it's not a tool used by translators.
Classic and Pro are about as different as Trados Workbench and Studio 2011.
Vanessa Drexler wrote:
The same is true for XTM Cloud Freelance / Small Group / LSP. Aside from that I do not have the time to do so either. I just want to analyze the current version(s) of each software.
So let me specify my statement by distinguishing between SDL Trados Studio 2011, Across v5.0, Wordfast 5.5 and XTM Cloud 6.2
5.5 is a very old version (of Classic). The current versions are as follows:
Classic: 6.03t
Pro: 3.0
Anywhere: 1.5.8
| | | | | current version of wordfast (6.03t) | Jul 19, 2012 |
I don't think that Trados Workbench and SDL Trados Studio 2011 can be compared with Wordfast Classic and Professional. But that is probably a matter of opinion.
Indeed you're right. 6.03t is the current version of Wordfast Classic. I falsely thought 5.5 would be the latest.
| | | | Selcuk Akyuz 
Türkiye
Local time: 14:00
English to Turkish
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| a matter of opinion? | Jul 19, 2012 |
Vanessa Drexler wrote:
Actually it is not that important for me whether a translator works with Wordfast Professional / Classic / Anywhere / Server, since all of the four versions are from Wordfast and are not extremely different from each other.
Please define extremely, yes they are all CAT tools
Vanessa Drexler wrote:
I don't think that Trados Workbench and SDL Trados Studio 2011 can be compared with Wordfast Classic and Professional. But that is probably a matter of opinion.
IMHO, it is a matter of knowledge.
I understand the limitations of a bachelor thesis but don't 'think', instead 'ask' to the developers/trainers of various CAT tools who already replied here.
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MikeTrans
Germany
Local time: 13:00
Italian to German
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| The products listed are not enough to be representative | Jul 20, 2012 |
Hi Vanessa,
apart the Trados product which is an important one, your list of CAT tools are way not representative.
As Dominique stated, there is no 1 Wordfast product, and in my opinion Cloud-based translations (XTM) are used by only a minority of translators for which confidentiality is not a prime requirement.
A vast number of translators also use the following tools (not in order of importance, and I don't want to emphasize any of them):
Déjà Vu ... See more Hi Vanessa,
apart the Trados product which is an important one, your list of CAT tools are way not representative.
As Dominique stated, there is no 1 Wordfast product, and in my opinion Cloud-based translations (XTM) are used by only a minority of translators for which confidentiality is not a prime requirement.
A vast number of translators also use the following tools (not in order of importance, and I don't want to emphasize any of them):
Déjà Vu X2
MemoQ
Trados 2007 (which is prefered by most agencies)
MultiTrans corpora (mostly Canada, Belgium)
Terminotix products (LogiTerm; mostly Canada)
Greets,
Mike ▲ Collapse
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I do see your point. But I cannot include more than four CAT Tools in my list, since this is not possible by means of the scope of my ba thesis. And these 4 are the ones the translation agency I am writing my thesis for is interested in...I mean to be perfectly respresentative I would need to investigate like 20 translation tools, and this is simply too much for my purposes.
I need to admit that I've failed to correctly distinguish between the several versions of Wrodfast and XTM. ... See more I do see your point. But I cannot include more than four CAT Tools in my list, since this is not possible by means of the scope of my ba thesis. And these 4 are the ones the translation agency I am writing my thesis for is interested in...I mean to be perfectly respresentative I would need to investigate like 20 translation tools, and this is simply too much for my purposes.
I need to admit that I've failed to correctly distinguish between the several versions of Wrodfast and XTM. But the data does nevertheless represent a clear tendency towards good / bad degrees of usability. Consequently, the outcome of this survey will respresent the general opinion of the users of each translation tool because all different kinds of versions of the tools were not addressed individually. So I need to think of something else to rank the multiple-user versions of each tool...
By the way, I am not investigating SDL Trados 2007 because it is uninteresting for this above mentioned translation agency, since they've already been working with this tool (and are maybe interested in an upgrade to the 2011 version).
Kind regards!
Vanessa ▲ Collapse
| | | | Oliver Walter
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:00
German to English
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Elina Lagoudaki conducted a similar survey for her MSc in translation at Imperial College in 2006. The original version, although it states:
"This publication is released to the public domain under a Creative Commons license. Any person can copy, distribute, print or display part of or the entire publication, or use it to produce derivative works, without any prior permission from the author, under the following conditions:
Any use of this work is permitted only for noncommerc... See more Elina Lagoudaki conducted a similar survey for her MSc in translation at Imperial College in 2006. The original version, although it states:
"This publication is released to the public domain under a Creative Commons license. Any person can copy, distribute, print or display part of or the entire publication, or use it to produce derivative works, without any prior permission from the author, under the following conditions:
Any use of this work is permitted only for noncommercial purposes and provided that full and accurate attribution is given to the author."
appears to be available on the Imperial College website only to people who can log into the site. Its title is: "Translation Memory systems: Enlightening users' perspective". A version with very similar, but not identical contents, is available here:
http://mt-archive.info/Aslib-2006-Lagoudaki.pdf
It is entitled "Translation Memories Survey 2006: Users' perceptions around TM use" and it contains virtually the same text, but the diagrams are of poorer quality and it doesn't include the appendix, which lists how many of the translators who participated were from each of the 54 countries listed. (874 translators participated, but 101 did not state their country of residence). The greatest numbers were 121, 78, 74, 43 from UK, Greece, USA and Germany, with one each from 10 countries including Algeria, Latvia, China and Paraguay.
A dozen TM systems are listed in relation to aspects such as how much they are used, but users' opinions (their ratings in terms of 9 aspects) are listed for only 4 TM tools: Trados, Deja Vu, Wordfast and SDL Trados 2006 (Wordfast Classic - I think the others didn't exist then: Wordfast Pro and Wordfast Anywhere).
Since that survey was done 6 years ago, the situation may have changed since then and, certainly, there are new versions of the TM programs used.
Oliver
[Edited at 2012-07-20 21:32 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Lagoudaki's survey | Jul 20, 2012 |
Thank you very much for this hint! Maybe I can compare my final results with those of 2006 and draw some similarities. 874 translators really is an impressive sum. By now, I've got about 100 translators to participate in my survey (all from Germany and Great Britain, only a few from other countries).
But maybe I should add that my survey is not the main part of my ba thesis like it is the case with Ms Lagoudaki's survey. This is also why I am not that much interested in details but... See more Thank you very much for this hint! Maybe I can compare my final results with those of 2006 and draw some similarities. 874 translators really is an impressive sum. By now, I've got about 100 translators to participate in my survey (all from Germany and Great Britain, only a few from other countries).
But maybe I should add that my survey is not the main part of my ba thesis like it is the case with Ms Lagoudaki's survey. This is also why I am not that much interested in details but only in the general perception that translators have on the usability of the translation tools they work with .
Again, thank you very much for this useful information!
Kind regards!
[Edited at 2012-07-20 22:26 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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| Lagoudaki study didn't meet scientific criteria | Jul 21, 2012 |
Oliver Walter wrote:
Since that survey was done 6 years ago, the situation may have changed since then and, certainly, there are new versions of the TM programs used.
As I wrote several years go, her "study" was very much biased, starting with the way she recruited participants.
| | | | | Do you know about a more reliable survey? | Jul 21, 2012 |
So you say that Lagoudaki worked towards a specific goal, namely showing that Déja Vu is the "best" translation tool? ...
Do you maybe know any in your opinion better survey on this topic?
| | | | | Existing surveys | Jul 21, 2012 |
Vanessa Drexler wrote:
So you say that Lagoudaki worked towards a specific goal, namely showing that Déja Vu is the "best" translation tool? ...
No, I'm not saying that, only that the methodology she used was not rigorous at all, definitely not what you would expect from a PhD doing a serious research in the academic world. Because of the very weak starting point, the results of her study are mostly anecdotical. Anyway, it's very old already.
Vanessa Drexler wrote:
Do you maybe know any in your opinion better survey on this topic?
Well, no doubt better studies have been conducted since (given how lacking hers was) and it's a popular subject among translation students, but I'm not aware of any recent, exhaustive, international survey.
Anyway, the scope of your own survey is limited right from the beginning, because the company you are doing it for has short-listed the tools it is interested in. You could perhaps include (if it's not too late) an open-ended question asking respondents if they have a tool of choice other than the one they picked up for your survey. For instance, I can tell you less than 0.1% of all Across users have Across as their tool of choice: they are using it because they have to, but if/when they can choose freely, they are using something else 
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