Improving machine translation by showing two outputs
Bin Xu, Ge Gao, Susan R. Fussell, Dan Cosley · 2014
We propose to improve real-time communication between people who do not share a common language by foregrounding potential problems in machine translation. We developed a prototype chat tool that displays two parallel translations of each chat turn, with the thought that comparing the translations might both highlight problems and provide resources for resolving them. We conducted a user study to investigate how people use and like such an interface compared to a standard one-translation interface. On balance, users preferred two translations to one, using them to both notice differences and infer meaning from uncertain translations, with no increase in workload. This suggests that this interface may help improve cross-lingual communication in practical applications and lays the groundwork for a larger design space around systems that highlight possible errors to support communication.