Version at: 8/2/20 14:50
# User experience test
Test performed by gillux on the 08/02/2020.
## User background
* Nationality: Japanese
* Languages: Japanese (native), Chinese Mandarin (advanced), English (very basic)
* Job: Japanese teacher and translator
* Age: 28
## Test
* Device: modern laptop with touchpad
* OS: Windows 10
* Browser: Chrome
* Instructions: I did not give any precise instructions, to let M\. discover Tatoeba.
I already quickly showed M\. to Tatoeba in the past.
#### Homepage as guest
* M\. looks at the Random sentence block but she cannot understand any of the sentences. She thinks is a pity that that sentence comes at the top since she is Japanese and the website is set in Japanese. It’s not interesting for her. She feels like "what is that actually for?" ("結局何これ"）
* M\. is disappointed that the content mixes Japanese and English. She feels like while the first introduction green block is in Japanese, the rest is basically English (mixed with Japanese).
* M\. clicks on the Browse by language link from the top menu. "Let’s have a look" (ちょっと見てみよう)
#### Japanese sentences (without translations, page 1 and 2)
* M\. reads the sentences and smiles at a funny one.
* "But these are only Japanese." M\. sees the drop downs on the right and sets "Show translations in" to "All languages".
#### Japanese sentences (with translations)
* M\. notices that there are two very similar sentences 日誌をつける。and 日記をつける。 added by the same member, likely consecutively. "Can’t I see such sentences grouped together?"
* M\. enters a keyword in the top bar and sets to=Japanese.
#### Search (keywords=つける, from=Japanese, To=Any language) page 1 and 2
* After looking at the results, M\. understands that the search engine doesn’t understand grammar because it shows the verb つける but also 見つける which is a totally different word. "It makes it difficult to search."
* "If I only want the verb つける, I need to search differently, like をつける"
#### Search (keywords=をつける, from=Japanese, To=Any language) page 1 and 2
* (pointing out the number of results getting lower) "This way I can narrow down the results."
* M\. looks at the sentences
* M\. looks at the additional search filters on the right. She changes "Show translations in:" to "None".
* M\. looks at the other filters. "There are many ways to search."
* M\. goes through all the filters.
* M\. thinks that a filter like "by username" doesn’t need to be on the top because it’s probably only used by very active members (I had mentioned to her that our community include such members) while first-time users would certainly don’t understand it and be confused.
* "What does "unapproved" (非承認) mean? That it hasn’t been checked? (チェックされてない）. It’s probably that."
* M\. clicks on the "Belongs to list" drop down. It’s very large and very long "What the hell is that? That’s very strange." (謎のものが出てきてる)
* M\. eventually clicks the submit button.
#### Search (keywords=をつける, from=Japanese, To=Any language) without showing translations
* M\. explains that she wasn’t able to visually compare the sentences, so she I disabled the translations. She suggests having that feature as a per-sentence collapse/expand button instead. The translation would be hidden by default if I’m only searching for Japanese sentences.
* M\. clicks on Browse by list from the top menu.
#### All public lists
* "What the hell is this?" ([どういうこと？](https://tatoeba.org/sentences/show/3553284))
* M\. clicks on the first list
#### List [Rosinus] Antiquitatum Romanarum Corpus Absolutissimum
* M\. clicks on the back browser button after a few seconds.
#### All public lists
* M\. looks at the lists. "Let’s ignore this."
* M\. clicks on the "Browse by tag" from the top menu.
#### All tags
* M\. clicks on the "Browse audio" from the top menu.
#### Sentences with audio
* The first page only contains English sentences. "The default language is probably English"
* M\. looks at the English (UK) flag and remembers that in the past I mentioned to her the flag problem. "It makes people wrongly assume it’s British English. I would misunderstand that. Maybe. I didn’t really think about it at first, but if I were to study English, I’d certainly want to know more about the differences among English dialects. For example the way Chinese in spoken in Taiwan is very different from mainland China, to the extend that it’s sometimes hard for Taiwanese to understand mainlanders. I wonder if it’s possible to indicate such differences using the flag."
* M\. plays an English recording. "Aren’t people who listen to recordings interested in this too? Where is the speaker from? I don’t really know about English, but it’s probably true for Japanese too."
* M\. clicks on the Japanese number.
#### Sentences in Japanese with audio
* M\. plays the first sentence: ここに座ってもいいですか？ "She’s very upset, isn’t she? It doesn’t feel like a question."
* M\. mentions that there are sentences in both polite and informal forms, but learners of Japanese (especially learning on their own) might not be able to tell wether a sentence is formal, informal, written, spoken… It may be easier to use if we could distinguish sentences at a glance.
* M\. plays a few other sentences.
* M\. clicks on "Add sentences" from the top menu.
#### Login
* "I need to login, I see. Same for 'Add translations', right?"
* "What is 'Adopt sentences'?" M\. clicks.
#### Orphan sentences in Japanese
* M\. sees and reads the "About adoption" block on the right.
* M\. feels confused after reading the first sentences, but ultimately understands after she finishes reading the whole text. "I see, I got it."
* "So if I adopt someone else’s sentence, I can correct it, right?"
* "Are there lots of people wanting to do that? Fixing awkward sentences. I wonder."
* M\. clicks "Improve sentences".
#### Improve sentences
* Now that M\. knows the meaning of adopting, she wonders what’s the difference between "Adopt sentences" and "Improve sentences". "Isn’t it the same thing?"
* M\. looks at the first section. "So this 'improve sentences' is actually… tagging? It says 'improve sentences', but it's only about tagging. Shouldn’t you guys group adopt and improve into a single thing?"
* M\. clicks on Discuss sentences from the top menu.
#### Discuss sentences (例文について議論する)
* M\. sees a comment on a Japanese sentence that looks like answering a question. She wonders if people also use this feature to do some real debating too. (The Japanese word 議論 actually means to debate, to argue with the goal of finding consensus or an answer.)
* M\. scrolls down. "I don’t understand this language."
* While looking at the sentence "このチケット、欲しい人に差し上げて。", M\. says it’s strange. M\. clicks on the name of the sentence owner. "Who is this?"
#### Profile page of small_snow
* "This person is probably a native speaker of Japanese."
* M\. clicks on the back browser button.
#### Discuss sentences
* M\. clicks on "Show activity timeline" from the top menu (this entry is not translated in Japanese).
#### Show activity timeline
* After a few seconds, M\. clicks on Wall from the top menu.
* I prompt M\. to explain why she ignored the page. M\. checks the page again. "Number of views? No. Number of added sentences? I don’t know. I have no interest in this. I wonder if it’s worth putting that on the top menu."
#### Wall
## Identified problems
* Tatoeba doesn’t match the user needs:
* Usability problems:
* Even though M\. used the top menu "Add translations" link as guest and saw a login page, once registered, she didn’t click that link to translate sentences. Instead, she used the "browse sentences" link to browse Chinese sentences and complained that you have to manually check if it’s already translated.
* Feeling problems:
* Onboarding problems:
version at: 8/2/20 14:55
# User experience test
Test performed by gillux on the 08/02/2020.
## User background
* Nationality: Japanese
* Languages: Japanese (native), Chinese Mandarin (advanced), English (very basic)
* Job: Japanese teacher and translator
* Age: 28
## Test
* Device: modern laptop with touchpad
* OS: Windows 10
* Browser: Chrome
* Instructions: I did not give any precise instructions, to let M\. discover Tatoeba.
I already quickly showed M\. to Tatoeba in the past.
#### Homepage as guest
* M\. looks at the Random sentence block but she cannot understand any of the sentences. She thinks is a pity that that sentence comes at the top since she is Japanese and the website is set in Japanese. It’s not interesting for her. She feels like "what is that actually for?" ("結局何これ"）
* M\. is disappointed that the content mixes Japanese and English. She feels like while the first introduction green block is in Japanese, the rest is basically English (mixed with Japanese).
* M\. clicks on the Browse by language link from the top menu. "Let’s have a look" (ちょっと見てみよう)
#### Japanese sentences (without translations, page 1 and 2)
* M\. reads the sentences and smiles at a funny one.
* "But these are only Japanese." M\. sees the drop downs on the right and sets "Show translations in" to "All languages".
#### Japanese sentences (with translations)
* M\. notices that there are two very similar sentences 日誌をつける。and 日記をつける。 added by the same member, likely consecutively. "Can’t I see such sentences grouped together?"
* M\. enters a keyword in the top bar and sets to=Japanese.
#### Search (keywords=つける, from=Japanese, To=Any language) page 1 and 2
* After looking at the results, M\. understands that the search engine doesn’t understand grammar because it shows the verb つける but also 見つける which is a totally different word. "It makes it difficult to search."
* "If I only want the verb つける, I need to search differently, like をつける"
#### Search (keywords=をつける, from=Japanese, To=Any language) page 1 and 2
* (pointing out the number of results getting lower) "This way I can narrow down the results."
* M\. looks at the sentences
* M\. looks at the additional search filters on the right. She changes "Show translations in:" to "None".
* M\. looks at the other filters. "There are many ways to search."
* M\. goes through all the filters.
* M\. thinks that a filter like "by username" doesn’t need to be on the top because it’s probably only used by very active members (I had mentioned to her that our community include such members) while first-time users would certainly don’t understand it and be confused.
* "What does "unapproved" (非承認) mean? That it hasn’t been checked? (チェックされてない）. It’s probably that."
* M\. clicks on the "Belongs to list" drop down. It’s very large and very long "What the hell is that? That’s very strange." (謎のものが出てきてる)
* M\. eventually clicks the submit button.
#### Search (keywords=をつける, from=Japanese, To=Any language) without showing translations
* M\. explains that she wasn’t able to visually compare the sentences, so she I disabled the translations. She suggests having that feature as a per-sentence collapse/expand button instead. The translation would be hidden by default if I’m only searching for Japanese sentences.
* M\. clicks on Browse by list from the top menu.
#### All public lists
* "What the hell is this?" ([どういうこと？](https://tatoeba.org/sentences/show/3553284))
* M\. clicks on the first list
#### List [Rosinus] Antiquitatum Romanarum Corpus Absolutissimum
* M\. clicks on the back browser button after a few seconds.
#### All public lists
* M\. looks at the lists. "Let’s ignore this."
* M\. clicks on the "Browse by tag" from the top menu.
#### All tags
* M\. clicks on the "Browse audio" from the top menu.
#### Sentences with audio
* The first page only contains English sentences. "The default language is probably English"
* M\. looks at the English (UK) flag and remembers that in the past I mentioned to her the flag problem. "It makes people wrongly assume it’s British English. I would misunderstand that. Maybe. I didn’t really think about it at first, but if I were to study English, I’d certainly want to know more about the differences among English dialects. For example the way Chinese in spoken in Taiwan is very different from mainland China, to the extend that it’s sometimes hard for Taiwanese to understand mainlanders. I wonder if it’s possible to indicate such differences using the flag."
* M\. plays an English recording. "Aren’t people who listen to recordings interested in this too? Where is the speaker from? I don’t really know about English, but it’s probably true for Japanese too."
* M\. clicks on the Japanese number.
#### Sentences in Japanese with audio
* M\. plays the first sentence: ここに座ってもいいですか？ "She’s very upset, isn’t she? It doesn’t feel like a question."
* M\. mentions that there are sentences in both polite and informal forms, but learners of Japanese (especially learning on their own) might not be able to tell wether a sentence is formal, informal, written, spoken… It may be easier to use if we could distinguish sentences at a glance.
* M\. plays a few other sentences.
* M\. clicks on "Add sentences" from the top menu.
#### Login
* "I need to login, I see. Same for 'Add translations', right?"
* "What is 'Adopt sentences'?" M\. clicks.
#### Orphan sentences in Japanese
* M\. sees and reads the "About adoption" block on the right.
* M\. feels confused after reading the first sentences, but ultimately understands after she finishes reading the whole text. "I see, I got it."
* "So if I adopt someone else’s sentence, I can correct it, right?"
* "Are there lots of people wanting to do that? Fixing awkward sentences. I wonder."
* M\. clicks "Improve sentences".
#### Improve sentences
* Now that M\. knows the meaning of adopting, she wonders what’s the difference between "Adopt sentences" and "Improve sentences". "Isn’t it the same thing?"
* M\. looks at the first section. "So this 'improve sentences' is actually… tagging? It says 'improve sentences', but it's only about tagging. Shouldn’t you guys group adopt and improve into a single thing?"
* M\. clicks on Discuss sentences from the top menu.
#### Discuss sentences (例文について議論する)
* M\. sees a comment on a Japanese sentence that looks like answering a question. She wonders if people also use this feature to do some real debating too. (The Japanese word 議論 actually means to debate, to argue with the goal of finding consensus or an answer.)
* M\. scrolls down. "I don’t understand this language."
* While looking at the sentence "このチケット、欲しい人に差し上げて。", M\. says it’s strange. M\. clicks on the name of the sentence owner. "Who is this?"
#### Profile page of small_snow
* "This person is probably a native speaker of Japanese."
* M\. clicks on the back browser button.
#### Discuss sentences
* M\. clicks on "Show activity timeline" from the top menu (this entry is not translated in Japanese).
#### Show activity timeline
* After a few seconds, M\. clicks on Wall from the top menu.
* I prompt M\. to explain why she ignored the page. M\. checks the page again. "Number of views? No. Number of added sentences? I don’t know. I have no interest in this. I wonder if it’s worth putting that on the top menu."
#### Wall
* "Someone’s writing about the updates."
* "They say 'thank you' in a lot of languages. :-)"
* "This user posts a lot. I saw his posts elsewhere."
## Identified problems
* Tatoeba doesn’t match the user needs:
* Usability problems:
* Even though M\. used the top menu "Add translations" link as guest and saw a login page, once registered, she didn’t click that link to translate sentences. Instead, she used the "browse sentences" link to browse Chinese sentences and complained that you have to manually check if it’s already translated.
* Feeling problems:
* Onboarding problems: