Something I’ve been thinking about for some time is a tour for translate.wordpress.orgtranslate.wordpress.org The platform for contributing to the translation of WordPress core, themes and plugins..

Product tours can be a very helpful way to introduce new users to a piece of software. In this case, a product tour for translate.wordpress.org can be an excellent way to guide new contributors on translation best practices, even before receiving feedback from translation editorsTranslation Editor Translation editors can approve translations for projects. The GTE (General Translation Editor) and LM (Locale Manager) roles can add new users with the "Project Translation Editor" role that can approve translations for specific projects. There are two different Translation Editor roles: General Translation Editor and Project Translation Editor.

In the Polyglots outreach effort, a need to better educate new translators frequently emerged in the survey responses. While there are visible links to Glossaries and the Polyglots Handbook on project pages, it’s hard to know if translators visit them before contributing their first suggestions.

While the GlotPressGlotPress GlotPress is the translation management software that powers Translate.WordPress.org. More information is available at glotpress.org. discussion tool allows translation editors to share feedback more easily, there is also an opportunity to proactively teach translators before their first translation. Relatedly, the Learn WordPress Polyglots Training was partially written with this in mind but is slightly more technical and exists outside translate.wordpress.org.

An idea: a guided tour

To help improve translation quality from the first suggested translation, I’d like to share the idea of adding a guided tour to translate.wordpress.org, specifically for new translators to learn more about best practices.

What does this mean? When someone logs into translate.wordpress.org for the first time, or after a long time (e.g. > 12 months), a few interactive pointers guide the person through the translation process and the translate.wordpress.org interface.

Example using WordPress pointers.

The goal would be to encourage translation best practices for new or returning translators. Including key steps—like “Check your localeLocale Locale = language version, often a combination of a language code and a region code, for instance es_MX denotes Spanish as it’s used in Mexico. A list of all locales supported by WordPress in https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/’s style guide before submitting your suggestion” or “Have you requested feedback from your translation editors on Make/Polyglots?”—encourages new contributors to follow guidelines set by their locale teams. 

When new contributors are familiar with resources like the local Style Guide, Glossary, or review process, it can help improve translation quality. Better quality equally means fewer corrections from translation editors. It can also mean encouraging people to opt into the discussion tool, making sharing feedback easier and seeing their translations accepted more quickly. 

Feedback request

There are infinite ways to implement something like this. Taking inspiration from other open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. communities, Pontoon—the translation tool for Mozilla—has a standalone walk-through that allows translators to test the tool before they start translating. WordPress, as another example, offers pointers in the Dashboard.

What do you think? In particular, I would love to hear:

• Do you think this would help with translation quality in your locale team?
• What are the most common errors you see from new contributors?
• When should the tour happen? For example, in translate.wordpress.org, while someone suggests their first translations or in a separate, interactive site, like this example?

One of the biggest challenges would be keeping the tour updated over time, and it’s not helpful to anyone—translators or developers—to create something that quickly becomes obsolete. For anyone with a design background, I’d be particularly interested in getting your opinion on UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. best practices and maintenance.

This is a rough idea! I very much welcome all of your thoughts and perspectives to explore this proposal.