User Attitudes to the Post-Editing Interface

At present, the task of post-editing Machine Translation (MT) is commonly carried out via Translation Memory (TM) tools that, while well-suited for editing of TM matches, do not fully support MT post-editing. This paper describes the results of a survey of professional translators and post-editors, in which they chose features and functions that they would like to see in translation and post-editing User Interfaces (UIs). 181 participants provided details of their translation and post-editing experience, along with their current working methods. The survey results suggest that some of the desired features pertain to supporting the translation task in general, even before post-editing is considered. Simplicity and customizablity were emphasized as important features. There was cautious support for the idea of a UI that made use of post-edits to improve the MT output. This research is intended as a first step towards creating specifications for a UI that better supports the task of post-editing.