[sword-devel] Implementation questions for Wycliffe EasyEnglish representative

[Lynn Allan]

Hello Troy,

It appears that the Sword-EasyEnglish project may be getting past the
lethagic "requirements and design" discussion to implementation. As usual,
people willing to put fingers to keyboard and punch out prototype code
(rather than e-mails) are prevailing, fortunately, over their more "patient
and learned" brethren.

I previously submitted what I claim to be a working prototype of a nsis
installer. That was the easy part. I have several questions regarding
specific implementation issues that only a Wycliffe representation could
probably adequately answer. Are you willing and able to be the designated
"point of contact" for this interaction?

It appears that there are at least three sword members with adequate VB
experience (not including me, obviously). Out of that elite group, perhaps
one could actually accept that quaint task usually referred to as "Get It
Done" with annoying guidance/feedback from the other two. Short straw loses?

My questions (mostly related to the person doing the VB implementation -- 
not me, obviously)

1. Does every document they would work on need to have the customized
settings revised individually?

2. Or is this a one-time change that suffices for most or all following
documents?

3. Could they start off with customized templates that have the appropriate
.dot "in force"? (ezword-97.doc, ezword-2000.doc, ezword-xp.doc?)

4. How many documents does a volunteer work on? Do they tend to be a few
large documents, or many small pages?

5. Do they have any actual numbers for the "drop-out" rate of overseas
volunteers? Are we looking at 10 of 100, 1 of 4, 70 of 100, 98 of 100? Is
there any way to get at least a rough estimate? Is there a rough objective
for what is acceptable and represents satisfactory improvement?

6. A useful requirements document could be them writing a tentative "user
manual to install EasyEnglish". It would list the steps of the revised
procedure that would appropriately fit their "user profile" of non
computer-literate users who are not native English speakers.

7. What is the actual level of end-user support available? Are end-users
typically organized as teams of translators in one geographic area, so that
training one or two of twenty would suffice? Or is it more a matter of
onesies and twosies scattered around the world with marginal opportunies to
contact Ez tech support? In other words, are they expected to be pretty much
self sufficient once the software arrives?

8. Are there any actual numbers for the proportion of end-user that are
native English speakers, and that are reasonably computer literate? Is there
a group of end-user translators that could serve as a test environment?
Preferrably, they could be contacted reliably.

9. Realistically, what are their time frames? Soft and hard deadlines? When
do the funds run out?

TIA,
Lynn Allan
l.allan@att.net