Do you enjoy learning about global cultural differences? Have you worked with translations of material for the Web? Join the accomplished and always interesting volunteer group that produce the UXPA’s UX Magazine. See your name in lights (or at least on the printed and online masthead), and earn the gratitude and friendship of a world of UX practitioners. Interested? Please contact Alice Preston – alicepreston2010@gmail.com.
Desired background:
- Has worked on translation projects for paper, online, or Website distribution
- Has some understanding of double-byte character sets on the Web
- Has worked with professional colleagues from different parts of the world, with an understanding of the cultural and communication issues
- Language proficiency in another language a plus
- Strong interest in furthering the aims of UX research and design across the globe
- Interest in being involved with a lively and accomplished group of UX Magazine colleagues.
Position Duties:
- Interact with UX Magazine editors, including monitoring and receipt of source copy (titles and abstracts for upcoming issue)Â
- Assist UX Magazine editors and the Translation Manager with maintenance of and adherence to the schedule
- Interact with UX Magazine Staff posting to the online magazine; as appropriate, provide both assistance with HTML posting and first-line check of results
- Over time, assume some of the interaction with the international volunteer reviewers
- Assist with development of the translation process to additional languages and parts of the world
- Assist Translation Manager as negotiated, depending on workload
Estimated time requirement: 10-12 hours 4x year
In which languages do you need volunteers to have proficiency? Are the responsibilities in the actual translation of the articles or have they already been translated by the foreign national but need to be polished? It’s unclear what the actual responsibilities are?
Hi Janice — thanks for asking. The translations are done by a professional firm, and the Translation Manager (currently myself) passes the source and reviewed copy back and forth between those folks and the in-country reviewers. The part we’re trying to get a volunteer to help with is what happens both before and after that — sort of a combo schedule-watcher, traffic manager, and QA assistant, with some communications to the translation review teams as required; all or mostly administrative, project-management type duties.
Over time, and if all works well, the person in the Associate Translation Project Manager position (this position) could possibly become the Translation Project Manager.
UX Magazine titles and abstracts are currently translated into Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and we have review teams in each of those countries. We hope to add other languages as appropriate and as budget becomes available, and to maintain the professional level of quality on the translations.
Please let me know if you need more info!