When I started my first project at the Centre for Digital Public Services (CDPS) in January 2023, I had the opportunity to define our approach and try something different to involve translators more in content work.
The project objective was to explore ways of working with local authorities to improve the delivery of services bilingually in the context of the cost of living support – the School Essentials Grant first, and Free School Meals after that.
Previously I had tried to involve a translator in my work at other organisations, and collaborate with them. I’d spent time building good relationships with the translation team, but never succeeded.
The translation team worked in a silo, by word count and under pressure, working through the work ticket by ticket. This meant translation work could come from anywhere in the organisation, so every attempt to try and work in a different way was channeled back into the established process.
Translation in the public sector
Translators are busy people. They have a crucial job in the public sector of a bilingual nation.
But I’ve always sympathised with them.
In my experience, they’re often expected to do their work by word count, with limited resources and tight deadlines - with no context or the opportunity to ask for clarification.
Translation is often an afterthought.
Views on languages are generally reductive and simplistic, and not many people understand how it works to translate meaning from one language to another.
A lack of understanding about the role of translators becomes a bottleneck in organisations that prevents the smooth delivery of services and information.
So when given the opportunity at CDPS, I was keen to work directly with translators.
Previously I’ve enjoyed using a well-known technique called pair writing to design content with subject experts. During the cost of living project, I built on this by bringing the translator into these sessions, turning it into trio writing.
Trio writing worked really well for us in this context. It improved the quality and accessibility of our content in both Welsh and English.
But trio writing is not a one-size-fits-all solution because not all content is created equally.
As well as meeting user needs, content is designed to meet organisational needs too. And it’s developed within the organisation’s unique context: its structure, people, culture, roles, skills, resources, processes, and constraints.
Trio writing cannot and should not be used everywhere, every time: it’s not only impractical but also unnecessary.
Learn more about producing bilingual content through trio writing.
Other ways to involve translators in your work
We’re busy working on the MVP (minimum viable product) of our service manual this year, which aims to provide organisations in Wales with information that helps them meet the Digital Service Standard for Wales.
Developing this content, I’ve involved and worked with a translator and other practitioners in different ways to fit our needs. Some recent examples are:
- trio editing
- content reviewing with subject matter experts
- bilingual prototyping
Regardless of your role, hopefully these will give you ideas of other ways to collaborate with translators.
1. Trio editing
As we were shaping two pieces of content, we organised a content critique with the wider CDPS community. We called it a ‘Show the thing’ as it was an opportunity to open up, show what we were designing, and get some initial feedback.
After collating feedback, I worked with the service designer and translator to review and edit the content together, and discuss anything that could be a problem when translating it from English to Welsh.
Having two Welsh speakers in the session allowed us to discuss the nuances to make sure the content was readable and understandable in both languages.
Working together, we refined the content based on the feedback effectively, and the translator had enough context to translate it quickly.
2. Reviewing content with subject matter experts
We’ve prioritised working on the areas of the service standard that are unique to Wales. The first is information around doing user research with Welsh-language users.
This is a fairly young practice in Wales, so there’s not much guidance available.
So we want it to be a community effort. We’ve worked with the team that runs the User research in Wales community of practice to co-design a series of considerations when doing user research with Welsh-language users.
To produce it, we helped the team design and facilitate an in-person session with the user research in Wales community to gather people’s thoughts and experiences. Once we collated and analysed all of the rich knowledge and insights from the community, it was time to distill it into guidance content.
I ran review sessions to gather feedback on drafts and invited the translator to join us. This would give them context, let them ask questions, and raise any issues that could be a problem for translation.
After this session, the translator could translate with the confidence that they understood what we were trying to communicate and why.
3. Bilingual prototyping
As we headed towards testing our service manual content in the prototype, we needed quick and adaptable translation support for different elements. For example, buttons, calls to action, and menus.
Instead of sending the content to the translator out of context in a document, I invited them to join the interaction designer and myself to work together directly in the prototype.
Although it was the first time the translator used Figma, they quickly learned their way around, and went on to translate while discussing the changes with us. We all found it helpful to be able to see the content in action.
The benefits of involving translators early and often
As well as designing content that tested well, there are other benefits of working closely with a translator, including:
- being more efficient
- being more responsive and agile
- having better contextual understanding
- having more ownership
Being more efficient
By working closely together, we simplified workflows and processes - we saved steps, time, and work by reducing the need for back-and-forth handovers that often slow down progress.
Being more responsive and agile
Involving translators early and often and collaborating meant we needed fewer meetings and had more productive working sessions where we could make practical decisions and adapt quickly.
Having better contextual understanding
Taking part in conversations around the information and seeing the content in context helped the translator understand what we were communicating and why, allowing them to ask questions and raise potential issues early on.
This makes the translation process easier and quicker for the translator afterwards.
Having more ownership
The translator mentioned feeling more considered in making decisions, more in control, and having greater ownership over the content as part of the team as a co-author.
Conclusion
As we move forward with the service manual, we’ll continue to explore and experiment with different ways to involve and work with translators that bring the most value to us and the end user.
Involving the translator early and often has allowed us to consider both languages equally from the beginning, become more adaptable and agile, and - according to the users who tested it - produce higher-quality content in both Welsh and English.
Importantly, it helped embedded the translator (and the Welsh language) as a more active and integral part of our team and project and allow them to be involved in the decision-making as a co-author of the service manual.
It’s made our ways of working more collaborative and inclusive.
Get involved
We’re talking with people working in the Welsh public sector to test our service manual and better understand how we can support them.
If that’s you, email standards@digitalpublicservices.gov.wales to take part in our research.
We’ll be in touch soon!
