Designing bilingual user-centred services

We must develop public services in collaboration with the people who use them​.

Taking a user-centred service design approach is helping us design the right thing for the customer. Without service design, there is no real transformation.

Focusing on the user

User needs should drive service design, whoever those users are. User needs matter more than the constraints of business structures, organisational silos or technologies.’

“We need to make things that fit the way people are, and not expect people to contort their behaviour in order to use our services.”

Welsh context

In Wales we have:​

• public services that need to be designed​
• people with the skills to design them​
• people who want to learn service design skills​

We don’t have:​

• enough opportunities for skilled people​
• pathways for people to enter the profession​

This webinar spoke about the principles of service design through to communities of interest and hands-on delivery taking part were:

• Darius Pocha, founder of Create/Change
• Jess Neely, Service Design and Research Lead at Perago
• Ian Vaughan from Neath Port Talbot County Council

The Welsh content of user-centred services should be drafted alongside the English content, not just translated.

But this might not always be practical. So what, if anything, can be done?

There are many questions you should consider, beyond just translating content.

• What is the national or local context?
• How do you research and test with bilingual audiences?
• Do users have different needs in different languages?
• When is a translation enough?

In a meeting of our Building bilingual services community of practice, the Canadian Digital Service showed us their approach.

Most translators will translate between 3,000 and 5,000 words a day. Some working in-house but many working for numerous clients.

If a translator is faced with a piece of work that is full of jargon, a literal translation might be the only practical solution.  

The term ‘Community of Practice’ is an example. Translated into Welsh it could be ‘Cymuned o Ymarferwyr’ (but that literally means 'Community of Practitioners').

A more precise translation could be ‘Cymuned Arfer’. Let us translate it back to English – would it be ‘Community of habit’…?  

When you think about what a community tries to achieve, would it not be better to call it ‘Cymuned drafod’ (which doesn’t work in English - it means 'discussing community') or, for a more authentic Welsh version, what about ‘Melin drafod’?  

There is nothing wrong with the translation – it is correct, and if you are working in the public sector, you’re likely to read it with little effort.

But what if you put it through the ‘friends and family’ test? Would this be an example where they would look for that toggle button, and switch to the English? 

If translators have to keep contacting their clients to understand a sentence's meaning, creating a clear translation will become complex and costly.

It's no wonder why translators often opt for the literal translation.

Take these two sentences as examples

“…. This means following an iterative or incremental approach, adjusting as we go along always focusing on delivering solutions that meet the needs of the users of the service…” 

Translated as:

"Mae hyn yn golygu dilyn ymagwedd ailadroddol neu fesul cam, gan addasu wrth i ni fynd a chanolbwyntio bob amser ar gyflawni datrysiadau sy'n bodloni anghenion defnyddwyr y gwasanaeth."

What does ‘iterative and incremental approach’ actually mean? Is it: 

“This means testing and re-testing as we go along, making changes and always finding the answers that makes the journey easier for the user.” 

This would translate as:

"Mae hyn yn golygu profi ac ail-brofi wrth ddatblygu, gan wneud newidiadau a dod o hyd i atebion sy'n gwneud hi'n haws i ddefnyddio'r gwasanaeth.

Many would argue that the second version does not have the corporate/official language that is needed to reflect the status of an organisation and that it is too simplified.  

However, people must feel comfortable and confident using language. If the Welsh (or English) gives the illusion of unfamiliarity, you have lost the audience's attention before you begin.