BIK Terminology

Solving the terminology puzzle, one posting at a time

Why doublettes are bad

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One of the main reasons of having a concept-oriented terminology database is that we can set up one definition to represent the concept and can then attach all its designations, including all equivalents in the target language. It helps save cost, drive standardization and increase usability. Doublettes offset these benefits.

The below diagrams are simplifications, of course, but they explain visually why concept orientation is necessary when you are dealing with more than one language in a database. To explain it briefly: once the concept is established through a definition and other concept-related metadata, source and target designators can be researched and documented. Sometimes this research will result in multiple target equivalents when there was only one source designator; sometimes it is just the opposite, where, say, the source languages uses a long and a short form, but the target language only has a long form.

If you had doublettes in your database it not only means that the concept research happened twice and, to a certain level, unsuccessfully. But it also means that designators have to be researched twice and their respective metadata has to be documented twice. The more languages there are, the more expensive that becomes. Rather than having, say, a German terminologist research the concept denoted by automated teller machine, ATM and electronic cash machine, cash machine, etc. two or more times, research takes place once and the German equivalent Bankautomat is attached as equivalent potentially as equivalent for all English synonyms.

Doublettes also make it more difficult to work towards standardized terminology. When you set up a terminological entry including the metadata to guide the consumer of the terminological data in usage, standardization happens even if there are multiple synonyms. Because they are all in one record, the user has, e.g. usage, product, or version information to choose the applicable term for their context. But it is also harder to use, because the reader has to compare two entries to find the guidance.

And lastly, if that information is in two records, it might be harder to discover. Depending on the search functionality, the designator and the language of the designator, the doublettes might display in one search. But chances are that only one is found and taken for the only record on the concept. With increasing data volumes more doublettes will happen, but retrievability is a critical part of usability. And without usability, standardization is even less likely and even more money was wasted.

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To centralize or not to centralize—it’s not even a question

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In May, I saw the announcement of a new research brief by Common Sense Advisory, which, according to its summary, would explain why companies are starting to centralize their language services. That made sense to me. In fact, it made me happy.

Not happy enough to cough up the money to purchase the study, I am afraid. But as people interested in terminology management, don’t you think that the following paragraph from the announcement sounds good? “Large organizations have begun consolidating their translation activities into internal service groups responsible for a broad range of language-related functions. This brief outlines the rationale behind and steps involved in enterprise language processing, including centralized operations, process re-engineering, automation, and content and metadata remediation.”

It sounds good, because anything else but a centralized service for prescriptive terminology management in an enterprise would be counterproductive. A centralized terminology database with a centralized service allows an entire company to contribute to and make use of the asset. According to Fred Lessing’s remar in an earlier posting, Daimler did a good job with this. Here is what they and companies, such as IBM and SAP, who have had a centralized service for years, if not decades, are getting out of it:

  • Standardization: If product teams reuse terms, it leads to consistent corporate language. Documenting a term once and reusing it a million times, helps getting a clear message out to the customer and sets a company off from its competitors.
  • Cost savings: The Gilbane Group puts it nicely in this presentation: “Ca-ching each time someone needs to touch the content.” It might cost $20 to set up one entry initially, but ten questions that didn’t need to be asked, might save $200 and a lot of aggravation. There are many terminology questions that come in for a major release. If I remember correctly, there were 8000 questions for a Windows Server release back when things hadn’t been centralized; many translators asked the same question or asked because they couldn’t access the database.
  • Skills recycling: That’s right. It takes “strange” skills to set up a correct and complete entry. A person who does it every now and then might not remember what the meaning of a data category field, forgets the workflow, or simply can’t understand the question by a translator. And yet, entries have to be set up quickly and reliably, otherwise we get the picture painted in this posting. A centralized team, who does it all the time, refines skills further and further, and again, saves time because no questions need to be asked later.

But all that glitters is not gold with centralization either. There are drawbacks, which a team of committed leaders should plan for:

  • Scale: Users, contributors and system owners all have to be on board. And that takes time and commitment, as the distance between people in the system may be large, both physically and philosophically. Evangelization efforts have to be planned.
  • Cost allocation: A centralized team might be in a group that doesn’t produce revenue. As a member of terminology teams, I have worked in customer support, content publishing, product teams, and the training and standardization organization. When I had a benchmarking conversation with the Daimler team in 2007, they were located in HR. The label of the organization doesn’t matter so much than whether the group receives funding for terminology work from those groups that do generate revenue. Or whether the leadership even just gets what the team is doing.

I believe that last point is what broke the camel’s back at Microsoft: Last week, the centralized terminologist team at Microsoft was dismantled. The terminologist in me is simply sad for all the work that we put in to build up a centralized terminology management service. The business person in me is mad for the waste of resources. And the human worries about four former colleagues who were let go, and the rest who were re-organized into other positions. Here is good luck to all of them!

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Quantity AND Quality

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In If quantity matters, what about quality? I promised to shed some light on how to achieve quantity without skimping on quality. In knowledge management, it boils down to solid processes supported by reliable and appropriate tools and executed by skilled people. Let me drill down on some aspects of setting up processes and tools to support quantity and quality.

If you cannot afford to build up an encyclopedia for your company (and who can?), select metadata carefully. The number and types of data categories (DCs), as discussed in The Year of Standards, can make a big difference. That is not to say use less. Use the right ones for your environment.

Along those lines, hide data categories or values where they don’t make sense. For example, don’t display Grammatical Gender when Language=English; invariably a terminologist will accidentally select a gender, and if only a few users wonder why that is or note the error, but can’t find a way to alert you to it, too much time is wasted. Similarly, hide Grammatical Number, when the Part of Speech=Verb, and so on.

Plan dependent data, such as product and version, carefully. For example, if versions for all your products are numbered the same way (e.g. 1, 2, 3,..), it might be easiest to have two related tables. If most of your versions have very different version names, you could have one table that lists product and version together (e.g. Windows 95, Windows 2000, Windows XP, …); it makes information retrievable slightly simpler especially for non-expert users. Or maybe you cannot afford or don’t need to manage down to the version level because you are in a highly dynamic environment.

Enforce mandatory data when a terminologist releases (approves or fails) an entry. If you  decided that five out of your ten DCs are mandatory, let the tool help terminologists by not letting them get away with a shortcut or an oversight.

It is obviously not an easy task to anticipate what you need in your environment. But well-designed tools and processes support high quality AND quantity and therefore boost your return on investment.

On a personal note, Anton is exhausted with anticipation of our big upcoming event: He will be the ring bearer in our wedding this weekend.

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