If Google provided you with the resources to run an A/B test with a million users in any country you chose, what would you want to learn? How would you design the test to learn this? What impact would the findings have?
At the moment and more in the near future, a large working/studying/mobilised population will have some amount of understanding of a dominant foreign language. Currently it is English but we cannot predict the exact direction of the future. However the situation would be that, a larger population will be speaking more than one language according to the economic situations that arise, In this case we see a new issue, where, one who has some amount of understanding of a language is expected to interact with it efficiently. At the moment we dependent on translators, translation digital technologies or simplified communication. However this process has its own set of problems. IF one doesn't know the other language at all, then it creates a completely different situation and expectation, however that is not the case being studied here.
For a user who is fairly familiar with the foreign language and needs to communicate quickly with people.
Is it easier to understand/comprehend a new word/term
by translating it to the most comfortable language
or
by defining the word in the same language itself
The test is to determine which cognitive process while interacting with a new language is more efficient and meaningful, especially when one is not completely alien to the new language.
The A/B test in collaboration with google will set up a condition where this can be tested by a series of small comprehension tests.
Experiment A
1. A user logs in, selects the most familiar language and the second language that he/she is using.
2. An audio file passage is played out in the second language.
3. Questions about the passage appear with a timer.
4. The user also sees a list of the difficult words on screen,
5. On rollover the words are translated to the familiar language
Experiment B
1. Repeat above steps till no 4.
2. On rollover the definition of the words are shown in the second language being used
Another factor that can be tested is also the difference between listening and being provided with a transcript, as if the audio was transcribed in real time.
At the moment and more in the near future, a large working/studying/mobilised population will have some amount of understanding of a dominant foreign language. Currently it is English but we cannot predict the exact direction of the future. However the situation would be that, a larger population will be speaking more than one language according to the economic situations that arise, In this case we see a new issue, where, one who has some amount of understanding of a language is expected to interact with it efficiently. At the moment we dependent on translators, translation digital technologies or simplified communication. However this process has its own set of problems. IF one doesn't know the other language at all, then it creates a completely different situation and expectation, however that is not the case being studied here.
For a user who is fairly familiar with the foreign language and needs to communicate quickly with people.
Is it easier to understand/comprehend a new word/term
by translating it to the most comfortable language
or
by defining the word in the same language itself
The test is to determine which cognitive process while interacting with a new language is more efficient and meaningful, especially when one is not completely alien to the new language.
The A/B test in collaboration with google will set up a condition where this can be tested by a series of small comprehension tests.
Experiment A
1. A user logs in, selects the most familiar language and the second language that he/she is using.
2. An audio file passage is played out in the second language.
3. Questions about the passage appear with a timer.
4. The user also sees a list of the difficult words on screen,
5. On rollover the words are translated to the familiar language
Experiment B
1. Repeat above steps till no 4.
2. On rollover the definition of the words are shown in the second language being used
Another factor that can be tested is also the difference between listening and being provided with a transcript, as if the audio was transcribed in real time.
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