Google's New Translator Service

Google is reportedly now using their own machine translator technology on Google Translate which was previously provided by Systran, a provider of online translation, translation software, and tools. There are apparently still issues with both technologies - Systran translation used by Altavista and Yahoo, and Google translation.

I like that Google allows you to translate a word or a block of text, entire web pages, and search in other languages. What is also cool is when you translate text, it will give you the option to "Suggest a better translation" so it's almost self-learning or self-correcting. But the option to "Get Translation Browser Buttons" is just an option to add to favorites; I expected a Google Toolbar button add-on. The Yahoo translation tool limits you to 150 words for their text translation, you can search the web for translated text but you can't specify what language you want to search in; I guess by default it assumes you want to search in the language of the translated text. They do have the option to "Add Babel Fish to your Yahoo! Toolbar" and I like the "Add Babel Fish Translation to your site" widget where depending on which one you choose, you can have people localize your site on the fly.

The problem with all this is that these tools are machine translations without any human intervention and while neither methodology is error free, computer assisted translation is more exacting. However, translations are of natural-language and dependent on context and conventions and is not always as literal or word-for-word. Most larger companies with geo-specific sites are engaged in multi-lingual computing at some capacity. And as a result, most pay a pirate's booty for human translation services which is billed by the word. It would be great if these online translation technologies could be used initially followed by human intervention.

China's Online Population Explosion

Hot off the research block, the Pew/Internet Research Group has published a report yesterday which indicates that China's internet population of 137 million is growing at a faster rate and is expected to outpace that of the U.S.'s of 165 to 210 million in a few years. This is not suprising considering the population of China which is at 1.3B compared to the U.S.'s at 300M.

There are many implications of this notwithstanding the impact on site globalization requirements for more and more companies wanting to do business in the lucrative Chinese market. The upside is that the "Chinese share a single written language, despite the multiplicity of spoken tongues..." (Source: Pew http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/218/report_display.asp). What is potentially trickier is understanding the social, political, and cultural nuances in the usage of language translation, color, metaphors, and imagery. I also recently read somewhere that China is expected to surpass India in the outsourcing arena as well.

Read the report (pdf).

Interview with Jon Wiley, User Experience Designer, Google Apps

I am an avid user and fan of Google Apps and judging by its growing popularity, I am certainly not alone on this. I recently had an opportunity to interview Jon Wiley, User Experience Designer, for Google Apps to gain some insight into this suite of apps. Jon was also recently a panelist at the Usability 2.0 Event at the WebGuild on April 11, 2007.

Q: You work on Google Apps. Can you tell the readers a little about it and what you do on Google Apps?

A: Google Apps is a collection of Google services such as Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Spreadsheets, and Talk, all bundled up as a white label product for businesses, schools, small groups, and ISPs. The Premier Edition is $50/user/year and the Standard and Education editions are free. I work on the sign up and payment interfaces, and parts of the administrator control panel interface. I also work with other designers and researchers to represent the needs of enterprise, SMB, ISP, and educational organizations when thinking about the experience of Google's diverse products and services.

Q: I think most people would point to Google Apps as an example of web, usability, and design 2.0 epitomized. Do you agree with this characterization and why or why not?

A: All of the services bundled with Google Apps certainly typify Web 2.0 applications. Google has long been an innovator in delivering powerful web applications via the browser. But we have only begun to scratch the surface of what is possible. Everyone who works on these applications has a hundred ideas to make them better. Our work is never done.

Q: One of the things I've noticed with Google Apps is that there is a little more attention placed on form in the design, notwithstanding function, compared to the uber simplicity of the google.com homepage. It still has the Google moniker but there is color, icons, and visual interest. Why this divergence, if you will? And what, if any, has been the impact on usability?

A: While the classic Google home page maintains a very simple appearance, we've recently given users more choices and the ability to customize their experience with iGoogle. It's true that our search interface is highly functional and that we've explored visual design more in our applications.

This divergence can be traced to where users spend time. Search connects users to the best results for their query as quickly as possible, and users do not spend a lot of time in search. Much more time is spent in applications like Gmail, Calendar, Docs, and Talk. The usability of these applications is enhanced through visual design. We want users to feel comfortable in our applications and it is there that investing in the visuals really pays off.

Q: Components of Google Apps such as Gmail, Talk, and Calendar are available for mobile access. Do you foresee Docs and Spreadsheets migrating to WAP as well? And if so, what would have to be different from the desktop version to ensure the usability of these apps on a WAP platform?

A: We want to make information universally accessible and useful. Providing access via mobile platforms goes towards fulfilling that first goal. Fulfilling the second, making it useful, is more complicated. Do people want to edit spreadsheets on their mobile phone or collaborate on documents? Perhaps they would rather just manage their documents, sharing them for instance. Or maybe the mobile context creates new possibilities for collaboration.

Q: Google Apps is localized for a number of countries and languages. How do you design for and test the usability for the various geographies and what are some of the differences encountered?

At a very tactical level, we strive to design interfaces which can work well in a variety of languages. Interfaces that scale and that make extensive use of CSS are easier to translate without breaking. If, from our research, we think a particular interface or workflow may be impacted by language or locale, we will organize user testing to help us understand and address those variances. At a more strategic level, Google has offices throughout the world. It is a lot easier to listen to your users if you are close to them.

Q: Tell us a little about your usability testing process.

For usability testing, which is a small part of our overall research program, we typically utilize labs on site to host users and present them with high fidelity prototypes of applications. We'll walk our users through a number of scenarios in order to gauge the usability of the interface. Occasionally, if the prototype is sufficiently deep, we will allow users to explore without any particular scenario in mind. Our process is an iterative one and we'll perform testing several times to improve the usability of the application.

Q: The target audiences for Google Apps are Small Business, Enterprise, Academia, and Families or Group. That's a pretty broad spectrum of users with varying needs and skill/experience levels. How do you create a suite of apps for multiple demographics and experience levels and still make it usable and stimulating for the everyone?

A: In terms of administrating these services for the organization, we work to identify the information and actions common to all of our customers and make those items readily visible and easily accessible. While the types of organizations served by Google Apps are quite diverse, their needs are often quite similar. Often, it is simply a matter of scale.

For the applications themselves, the spectrum of needs and diversity of users is greater. Nearly all Google applications begin their lives aimed squarely at the consumer market. Google excels at supporting large scale initiatives and we want to solve problems for the largest possible audience. This focus on solving problems for lots of people translates into highly useful applications. The world is full of software and devices with a wealth of solutions, maybe a tenth of which people actually use. We aim to include the features that most people will use a lot.

The rapid innovation of web applications in the consumer space has opened up a gap between the usability and usefulness of products in people's personal lives vs. the products and services offered by their employers and schools. Rather than look for feature-heavy products at home, they are seeking products that are easier to use and more useful in the workplace and the classroom. We're bridging that gap with Google Apps.

We also just launched a Partner Edition of Google Apps for ISPs.

Q: How are Web 2.0 technoligies such as AJAX being used in Google Apps?

A: I've been building web pages since 1995, and I find it hard to see the Web in such quantized units as 1.0 or 2.0. To me, there are a number of technologies and best practices that have been developed over the years, the adoption of which has come in stops, starts, stutters, gradual transitions, and everything in between. Google tends to take a very utilitarian view of technologies: we want the best tool for the job. Whatever enables us to offer fast, efficient, usable, accessible, and powerful services to our users.

JavaScript is used extensively in Gmail and Calendar. Our new Talk gadget for iGoogle uses Flash. The control panel for Google Apps uses CSS throughout. I'm continually amazed by the innovation Google engineers manage to achieve with technologies like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, which are many years old and were never really designed to handle the powerful applications we've created.

Q: Is Google Apps built with web accessibility in mind with respect to disabled users? And if so, how?

A: Accessibility of web applications for people with disabilities is a very challenging problem, one that we are working to solve. I am a member of a team of people at Google working to develop better processes and educate Googlers about the challenges we face in this area, as well as best practices for creating accessible products.

Q: Google Apps was created last year. How has this suite of online software applications and web publishing tools changed from then to now from a user experience perspective?

A: Initially the product was called Gmail for Your Domain and the scope was very limited. We have continued to add services to the product, enabling a number of communication and collaboration activities to be hosted in the Google computing cloud. This is in line with our mission to make information, in this case the information created and shared by our users, universally accessible and useful. I think Google Apps has also resulted in a greater need to integrate across our services and this work has direct benefits for individual consumers as well.

Q: Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, was recently quoted as saying that Apps and online software applications is a new focus for Google, in addition to search and ads, in what he calls a "shift to an online lifestyle" and Google is creating web-based applications that support that lifestyle with Google Apps. What are some of the user experience advantages and challenges that are unique to online apps versus the traditional desktop software like Microsoft Office?

A: Our customers can access their data from any device with a web connection. Gmail leverages Google's massive supercomputer to store vast amounts of information and our customers derive piece of mind from the knowledge that they won't lose their data, even if their computer breaks or is stolen. Hosting data in Google's cloud makes sharing and collaborating super easy, since information isn't chained to a single device. And users only have to worry about one program to run - the browser - no need to install and maintain a bunch of applications.

Designing web applications is a difficult problem for a number of reasons. As I mentioned before, the foundation technologies were never really designed for the complex tasks we're asking them to do. Also, the Web as a medium is highly variable and customizable. Web applications must function on a variety of browsers running on a variety of operating systems and displayed within a variety of browser window sizes. There is also the matter of bandwidth and connectivity.

Q: What can you share with us on the future enhancements planned for Google Apps? What's next on the roadmap?

A: We'll soon be adding presentation software to our suite of services and email migration for our Premier and Education Edition customers will be available soon. As always, we are continually innovating and improving our applications.

Thanks, Jon! This has been great. We look forward to more cool stuff from Google Apps.