This sounds like a very good idea and I would happy pay a few bucks for it on Android the next time I have to travel somewhere I don't speak the language.
Have you considered providing the flip side of the conversation? I would want to use an English interface to present a question and possible answers to a person who speaks another language, but it might also be possible that I'd want to let them pick from a list of phrases/questions in their language and allow me to answer as well.
Thanks for your comments! The idea of the conversation interface is that the user is driving the conversation. We wanted to make it extremely simple for the other person to see and respond. We don't have a good solution for the flip-side yet. It's one of the issues we found with certain translation applications that have user interfaces meant for two people. One person is probably not going to know how to use it.
I definitely do see value in this kind of interaction though, but we're going to have to be careful about how we implement it so we don't make the interface confusing for the person you actually want to communicate and not confuse!
Maybe you could make it detect when the device is turned upside down, and display a 180º rotated interface in the conversation partner's language? So the interaction would be input phrase->turn phone upside down->partner enters phrase?
Comments
This sounds like a very good idea and I would happy pay a few bucks for it on Android the next time I have to travel somewhere I don't speak the language.
Have you considered providing the flip side of the conversation? I would want to use an English interface to present a question and possible answers to a person who speaks another language, but it might also be possible that I'd want to let them pick from a list of phrases/questions in their language and allow me to answer as well.
Thanks for your comments! The idea of the conversation interface is that the user is driving the conversation. We wanted to make it extremely simple for the other person to see and respond. We don't have a good solution for the flip-side yet. It's one of the issues we found with certain translation applications that have user interfaces meant for two people. One person is probably not going to know how to use it.
I definitely do see value in this kind of interaction though, but we're going to have to be careful about how we implement it so we don't make the interface confusing for the person you actually want to communicate and not confuse!
Maybe you could make it detect when the device is turned upside down, and display a 180º rotated interface in the conversation partner's language? So the interaction would be input phrase->turn phone upside down->partner enters phrase?