
Chrome added an annoying translation feature - hanifbbz
http://user.wordpress.com/2014/06/15/chrome-added-an-annoying-translation-feature/
======
halviti
To those people who don't browse the internet in multiple languages, allow me
to elaborate.

With the new translate popup, you have to acknowledge it before you can
continue typing. This means always having to press escape or cancel randomly
when browsing the majority of webpages you visit.

Worse, the popup only shows after the page is fully loaded, so if you are
browsing a page that is slow to load for whatever reason, you're sure to get
interrupted in the middle of whatever you are doing, and if you were typing
something, you aren't anymore because you just lost focus.

Now imagine this behavior on nearly every webpage.

My options are to disable the translate feature, which I use quite a bit, or
to just put up with a crappy user experience, which is what I've been doing.

If you live in an English speaking country and only visit the occasional
foreign website, you're likely never to notice this problem.

~~~
vilhelm_s
What I don't understand is, why doesn't the "never translate pages in language
X" option solve you problem?

My own experience is that I often read pages in a couple of languages which I
understand well (and don't want auto-translated, so I put those languages on
the don't-translate list) and occasionally come across a page that seems
interesting in a language what I don't understand (and then the offer to
translate is helpful).

~~~
aboodman
People are often reluctant to execute UI to permanently remember choices
because they want to preserve the option to choose in the future.

For example, say I have a workable command of French, but want the ability to
translate French in the future in case I don't understand a particular
paragraph. So I put up with the annoying dialog over and over because I'm
afraid to not have it when I want it.

Always/never UI is almost always a design failure IMO.

Another example is the intent chooser in Android. I put up with the dialog
that asks whether I want to use Gallery or G+ photos because I fear not being
able to choose in the future when I have some other viewer I want to use, or
when there is some particular feature of G+ that I learn about and want to
use.

In many cases this isn't rational if you think it through. There is probably
some UI to reset the intent option somewhere, and finding it then is probably
less time overall than dealing with this dialog over and over. But you don't
think that through in the moment, you get slightly frustrated, press "not now"
again, and get on with whatever you were trying to do.

~~~
jannes
You can always re-enable the translation popup through the page's context
menu. It has an entry for "Translate to English" (or whatever your preferred
language is) right there.

~~~
epistasis
The problem is that a "permanent" decision has to be made before the user has
the option to discover how to make it less permanent.

When it comes to UI issues, the existence of a solution with enough poking
around is rarely a solution at all. The problem is that the UI is creating a
conflict for the user at the beginning; being able to resolve a conflict is
far worse than never creating the conflict at all.

~~~
dTal
>When it comes to UI issues, the existence of a solution with enough poking
around is rarely a solution at all

I have heard this pithily articulated in human factors as "if the user can't
find it, the function's not there".

------
Jedd
An unfortunate trend.

Chrome / Chromium have introduced a few non-optional changes recently that
seem to have been implemented by North Americans / native English speakers /
ex-or-current Microsoft windows users. Any or all of which are annoying for
non-North Americans or people that don't use Microsoft Windows.

Two that spring to mind - clicking in the URL bar now selects the entire
contents. It now has the dubious honour of being the _only_ text entry box in
any GNU/Linux application to work that way.

Similarly, dragging the scrollbar now has a snap-back feature if you move the
mouse more than about 40px from the scrollbar 'region'. Again, the only
application on any GNU/Linux DE that abuses the scrollbar in this fashion.

Requests by non-MS-Windows users to make these configurable settings, and/or
respect OS defaults, are met with disdain.

~~~
hanifbbz
Both issues are valid. Have you tried filing a bug? It's interesting that
Google doesn't put a high priority on Linux boxes even though both of their
operating systems (ChromeBook and Androids) are based on Linux kernel

~~~
Jedd
Bugs exist, and are well populated (though I suspect many disgruntled users
don't manage to track these things down to the code.google tracker).

The bug threads contain a predictable mix of well-reasoned, thoughtful
explanations of the problem, polite requests for fixes, impolite and
exasperated complaints, and developer responses ranging from 'you're wrong to
want the earlier / native OS behaviour' to 'we won't fix it, for reasons'.

Snap-back bug 377191 [1] morphed into 377919 [2]. I'm pretty sure the non-
intuitive 'snapback' name is an unfortunate and doubtless unintended example
of making it harder for users to find, and report their preferences.

Looking at those two bug reports, there's at least another half dozen issue
#'s that have been merged into these.

MS-Windows-like single-click to select the URL (rather than using the mouse as
a pointer to position the cursor, as GNU/Linux users seem to be familiar with)
bug reports date back a _long_ time [3] with hints that not all the developers
agree with the behaviour change (or the refusal to make it an option). Again,
it's the kind of thing that people continue to identify and complain about
elsewhere, for example on the Google product forums [4].

Just as with this one-time-offer-only, auto-translate pop-up bug -- I _really_
dislike the allegedly modern behaviour of reducing configuration options
inside software, while your shipped configuration annoys an ever-increasing
section of your user base.

The alleged benefit of satisfying the handful of people who are easily
bewildered by Settings dialogs is simply perverse.

</rant>

[1]
[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=377191](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=377191)

[2]
[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=337919](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=337919)

[3]
[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=26140](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=26140)

[4]
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/AZt9L9...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/AZt9L9dhJhg)

------
marcosdumay
It's clippy again! Silently stealing the focus, moving things, and being
"completely" helpful is so familiar behavior... It's only missing the avatar.

Also, Google keeps translating my queries into my native language. If I search
for some English term, odds are I want English pages back. But no, Google
disagrees (even when I search for a definition).

~~~
jakub_g
google.com/ncr and you have generic Google without country redirect, it
prefers returning English results

------
gorhill
The author is spot on, it is annoying.

As opposed to the author though, I believe yet another setting is not needed:
the translation tool is readily available as an icon in the address bar, so
_if_ I want to use that nice translation tool, I can easily just click this
icon.

~~~
halviti
It would also be nice if this were a standard option and not just one that
appears randomly when the auto-detect succeeds.

~~~
hanifbbz
Yeah, I really miss this one. Sometimes auto-detect just fails. I had to
install another extension (also from google) to fix it. But why load another
extension into memory for that?

~~~
kenjibaheux
The translate feature is always available via the context menu even if the
auto-detection fails to deliver.

------
kenjibaheux
I'm Kenji Baheux on the Chrome team and have been overseeing this feature with
our UX team.

Please accept my apologies for the trouble. We've been listening and are
making the following changes:

1\. we won't show the infobubble and rely on the omnibox icon if the focus is
on an editable field. [https://crbug.com/313100](https://crbug.com/313100)
(fixed in M36)

2\. the infobubble will stop stealing the focus: you will be able to type,
perform shortcuts, scroll the page and so on.
[https://crbug.com/378643](https://crbug.com/378643)

3\. we are experimenting with the idea of never showing the infobubble again
and solely rely on the omnibox icon as soon as we observe more than X negative
actions within a given timeframe T (starting with X=2; T=24h)
[https://crbug.com/379035](https://crbug.com/379035)

4\. A few other adjustments around the "translated" infobubble (e.g. will not
be shown for automatic translation, will not show up if the "translating"
infobubble has been dismissed).
[https://crbug.com/319628](https://crbug.com/319628)

I'm eager to hear additional feedback and would appreciate if you could play
with the feature in Canary as we land the different changes.

I'll take a look at each comments and reply with specific answers where
relevant.

Oh for the record, I'm French and my Japanese is better than my English ;)
Merci d'avance!

------
Already__Taken
What happened to the mantra "Never get in the way". Focus stealing spits in
the face of everyone who worked so hard to make chrome silently updated like
it does.

~~~
hanifbbz
Guess those have left Google long time ago! ;)

------
andor
_Recently Google has added a built-in translation feature to Chrome that has
some usability issues. Since these issues haven’t been fixed in the past
couple of releases, they might be here to stay._

Built-in Google Translate was added in Chrome 4.1 in 2010:

[http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.de/2010/03/windows-
beta...](http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.de/2010/03/windows-beta-update-
translate-and.html)

~~~
drdaeman
The feature's not new but it was redesigned relatively recently. Previously it
had showed a notification bar, not that popup dialog.

Old UI:
[http://docs.oseems.com/_media/general/application/chrome/chr...](http://docs.oseems.com/_media/general/application/chrome/chrome-
translate.png)

New UI:
[https://user.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/screenshot-6.png](https://user.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/screenshot-6.png)

In my opinion, new version is prettier, but more annoying as it partially
obscures webpage content.

------
stevewilhelm
Here is an example of an unexpected Google Translate behaviors. I don't recall
seeing these behaviors on this page before this week.
[http://imgur.com/0xPSsfn](http://imgur.com/0xPSsfn)

This report generation tool is displaying names of locations located in the
Netherlands, so Chrome suggests translating the page from Dutch to English.

I addition, it displays a dialog box asking if there is a better translation
of the label for the 'Download CSV' button.

~~~
kenjibaheux
One solution would be to use the meta notranslate tag:

[https://support.google.com/translate/?hl=en#2641276](https://support.google.com/translate/?hl=en#2641276)

------
valar_m
This would annoy me to no end if it impacted me to any degree.

Another annoying feature (new, I think) is auto zooming new tabs/windows I
open if I had been zoomed in on the previous page. It doesn't seem like it can
be turned off.

Also, asking permission to view in full screen is kind of annoying. But an
immediately following popup with "www.youtube.com is now full screen" is just
obnoxious. We also probably shouldn't begin desensitizing users to clicking
"Allow" in non-security situations.

~~~
hanifbbz
The zoom feature seems to be site-wide. i.e. if you have two tabs from the
same site, they have the same zoom level. It's a little unexpected.

The full-screen popup is also very annoying. +1

------
tgb
This brings up a more general question: why have things pop-up to the top of
the screen where it has to push the screen down slightly after versus having
it pop to the bottom where it wouldn't be a problem? Do users not see things
on the bottom? My memory is that Firefox uses bottom bars a fair amount like
for searching in a page but chrome only does for file downloads.

~~~
halviti
Although the change from a top bar to a full-on pop-up box likely had to do
with visibility, the biggest problem is that it now steals focus from the
user.

I don't care where the option is on the screen as long as it's not randomly
taking my cursor away from the webpage I'm trying to use.

------
clubhi
I wonder if it's all parts of the US that don't know foreign languages. I went
to highschool in Texas and we all had foreign languages since grade 6. Most of
us can at least read spanish. My friends that went to a local private school
were usually fluent in two other languages. I myself am fluent in Spanish and
can read/write Latin/Greek.

~~~
kghose
Never bring reason or facts to block a good America bashing/stereotyping. It
ruins the game for everyone.

~~~
icebraining
Those aren't facts, they're anecdotes. Facts are things like _" Just 18
percent of Americans report speaking a language other than English. That's far
short of Europe, where 53 percent of citizens speak more than one language."_
[1]

[1] [http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/education-and-language-
gap-s...](http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/education-and-language-gap-
secretary-arne-duncans-remarks-foreign-language-summit)

~~~
lsaferite
Compare the language prevalence of the US, geography wise, to Europe and
perhaps you'll understand the disparity. You basically have to learn multiple
languages to some degree in Europe. In the US you can travel larger distances
than all of Europe and speak only one language. Additionally, with English
being one of the common business languages, you find that many non-English
speaking countries learn English. Americans don't need to learn English (well,
some might). Should they learn another language or three, of course. Is it
necessary for everyday life? No. Most Americans have never left their country
and likely never will. The extent of their driving can get them places that
speak Spanish and French (maybe Portuguese if they REALLY drive).

I get it, Americans are fun to bash for numerous reasons, but it really annoys
me when the bashing is not thought through enough to be valid.

~~~
icebraining
I understand the reasons behind the disparity - and I'd say geography has
little to do with it; most people in Europe learn English has a second
language, not whatever language their neighbours speak. In fact, if anything
we _avoid_ learning their language, since we're at war with each other every
half a century.

But understanding the reasons doesn't make invalid. If anything, it makes it
_more_ valid, since the reason we all learn English as a second language is
because the Americans pushed for it, from Hollywood to the Internet. It's not
like English was the natural default; my mother was still taught French. It
wasn't until a few decades ago that English became the only thing we must
absolutely learn.

In any case, I meant only what I wrote; that Americans don't know second
languages is a fact. Whether that's cause for bashing was not part of my post.

------
tim333
Speaking of weird Google UI. I got an odd G+ share thing over my movie
selections today with no close button
[http://imgur.com/lhXgt9z](http://imgur.com/lhXgt9z)

temporary glitch I imagine

~~~
hanifbbz
work of art! :)

------
klausjensen
If I ever want to translate a page to another language, I know how to. So
please don't ask me more than once - and let me dismiss it forever.

If I ever want to use anything else than google.com to search, even though I
am in another country, I know how to change it. So please don't ask me more
than once - and let me dismiss it forever. STOP ASKING ME!

~~~
hanifbbz
I hate it when the software becomes some sort of big brother or parent. Trust
the user and respect their choices, even if you're designing software for
young kids! :D

------
sergers
Android chrome. Settings \ content settings \ translate - turn off

Desktop chrome. Settings \ advanced \ languages \ unchecked offer to translate

~~~
hanifbbz
Can one translate a page after turning off this feature in Chrome Android?

~~~
sergers
Only by going through Google translate web page. This disables the popup to
turn it on

------
lyndonh
I am not surprised. I tried to add some additional languages to Google (web)
preferences to the "Skip translations for" but then the primary language for
everything Google was changed to one of my additional languages. I had to go
back and change it to default single language.

~~~
hanifbbz
And that happened in a released product. Not sure if Chrome engineers bother
to test the product thoroughly now that they have such a quick unobtrusive
update system. Updates are bad. They are the reason for the demise of Windows.
They ease mistakes for sloppy people.

------
kps
According to [http://crbug.com/237522](http://crbug.com/237522) the second
time you click 'No' it should offer you a 'Never translate this language'
option.

Edit: it's under the 'Options' button of the translate popup.

~~~
personlurking
Though he mentions also that he wants to sometimes use the feature, rather
than having to deal with the everytime/never options.

------
jitl
Chrome has a good flow for this already if you want sometimes-translation. If
the feature is bothering you,

1\. Never translate this language

2\. When you want a page translated, click the Translation icon in the URL bar
and choose to translate.

------
Aoyagi
I've been seeing that for ages and I'm not a Chrome user. It could be disabled
last I checked...

~~~
hanifbbz
Obviously you are not a Chrome user. It's possible to avoid this dialog.
However it is quite annoying over a long usage period. And that's where you
don't feel the pain ;)

------
mahouse
This feature is very well designed and the author of this post did not have
anything better to write.

~~~
drdaeman
The primary point of the complaint is that feature is obtrusive to the extent
it's annoying - it displays some _uncalled popup_.

If an active suggestion (feature advertisement) is necessary, a single once-
in-lifetime "hey, here's a way to translate the page - click this icon if you
want to do so [ uh, okay, got it, now stop bugging me ]" (with clicking
outside treated as "probably didn't read - remind later again") would be a
much better approach.

~~~
mahouse
How many languages are the webpages you visit written in as to make this
feature so annoying?

~~~
darklajid
English, for one.

I'm unsure what point you try to argue here. The author of that post explained
what is wrong with the feature. You provided zero arguments against that.
Saying 'Nope, you are wrong' is not really helpful.

For me this feature is highly annoying and utterly broken. I agree with the
author and think his points were well made .

