About a month ago we invited a dozen or so testers to the Babelbee private beta test. Some were posting requests, some were bidding on them. Bids were assigned, translations submitted, (virtual) payments made. And the results were shocking. Not because our testers did not like the concept. They loved it. They went wild with the system. And they came with literally dozens of suggestions for features that we had never thought of. Some of them will be on the “to-do” list for while, but many seem quite crucial and we’ll be busy for the next month or so to include them in version 1. Some examples:
- When posting a request, clients felt that they want to be able to see right away how many translators (either native or non-native speakers) will be available for a given language pair.
- Translators felt they needed a “forum” type discussion with each request where they can ask questions about the request.
- What to do when a translation is delivered but there is no reaction from the client? The current vote is to allow the client 10 days to respond, after which the translation is automatically approved and the translator is paid.
- Users felt it was important to have the website interface, as well as the email messages that the system sends out, in various languages. With so many translators around – that should be no problem! We have planned for the Babelbee interface to be available in English, French, Chinese and Korean initially, with Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese and German to follow shortly.