Fighting back against proper noun feature names (2021)
Scott Kubie argues against using proper nouns for product features, stating it increases cognitive load and complicates communication. He advocates for simplicity, suggesting unnamed features enhance user experience and clarity.
Read original article
Scott Kubie discusses the challenges of naming product features, arguing against the use of proper nouns when common nouns suffice. He emphasizes that unnecessary naming increases cognitive load for users and complicates communication for support staff and technical writers. Kubie shares his experience from a long career in tech, highlighting that marketing often pushes for branding features, which can lead to confusion and awkward language in documentation. He notes that while all features need names, they do not require elaborate or branded titles. Instead, he advocates for simplicity, suggesting that unnamed features can enhance user experience and clarity. Kubie also addresses the issue of stakeholder management, recommending visual aids to demonstrate the benefits of using common nouns over branded names. He concludes that the trend of naming features unnecessarily is detrimental to user experience and encourages designers to prioritize intuitive workflows over complex naming conventions.
- Proper noun feature names increase cognitive load and complicate communication.
- Marketing often pressures for branding, leading to confusion in documentation.
- Simplicity in naming enhances user experience and clarity.
- Visual aids can help persuade stakeholders about the benefits of common nouns.
- Unnamed features can lead to more intuitive workflows and better design.
Related
Give people something to link to so they can talk about your features and ideas
Creating dedicated web pages for projects, ideas, or product features aids discussions and sharing. Examples like ChatGPT Code Interpreter and Boring Technology showcase this. Proper documentation enhances usability and SEO.
"Authentic" is dead. And so is "is dead."
Jason Cohen critiques overused marketing phrases like "authentic" and "game-changing," urging for specificity and concrete examples in communication. He encourages innovation and fresh ideas over clichés in writing and marketing.
Examples of Great URL Design (2023)
The blog post emphasizes the importance of thoughtful URL design, showcasing examples from StackOverflow, Slack, and GitHub, and encourages readers to share their favorite effective URL designs.
Against Names
The article explores the challenges of naming in computer science, highlighting anonymous identifiers in version control and utility CSS as ways to simplify workflows while balancing named and unnamed elements.
Removing stuff is never obvious yet often better
Simplifying products by removing unnecessary features can enhance user engagement. Pinecone's complex pricing calculator deterred customers, but its removal increased sign-ups by 16% and inquiries by 90%.
13 comments> In my experience, “show me the data” is often a tactic employed by weak managers who don’t know how to hang as part of a design process.
I really don't understand how asking to see data and talk in facts, rather than opinions, is a bad thing? This take seems to be implying the "design process" is just a giant, strictly qualitative "appeal to authority" fallacy and anyone who doesn't "get it" is some kind of naive rube?
It’s easier for a new engineer to understand and remember that your “foo-retriever” service calls “foo-processor” than to keep track of how “Zephyr” interacts with “Ceres”
I've worked in company which added a "funny" codename to everything: features, libraries, sprints, sections of backoffice interface. I don't know, maybe for some developers it makes things more engaging, for me it added a ton of unnecessary stuff to memorize or look up.
Also one of the reasons I don't like AWS. You really can call a router just "router", virtual machine "virtual machine" and so on.
And the other weird use of language is showing a discount for when you get a credit card as 'take 5%'. Not 'take 5% off'.
Like, I don't get to 'take' that. It doesn't appear in my pocket. I'm just spending less on your already overpriced product.
We have additional namespace for free. If it's the class it's account. If it's just an account it's konto or however you say account in your language.
Sometimes stuff is overloaded many times. Like transaction the user makes with the company, the DAO entity representing it, the db transaction, the spring transaction...
E.g. if support tells a customer "click on your account" - then what does that mean? account is a generic abstract thing, how does one click on that? The customer must deduce that support is referring to one particular button on one particular place. Or support must say "the button labeled 'account' on the top right hand corner of the screen". If there is a unique name, then saying "click on 'Your Account"' is simpler.
It's even more critical when support needs to explain something abstract to a customer. Like, imagine explaining the difference between the temporary and EBS storage of a EC2 instance without any of the capitalized feature names.
It feels like it was already worse some years ago, but this piece spells it out. And, ironically, gives the problem a name, which is a good thing in this case.
Naming them is stupid, it's emotional and irrational.
The Japanese have a much better system of numbering them...
I'd say "I'm going to Harrods", but never "has anyone seen iPhone?" to mean my iphone.
They've been trying this for over a decade and it still just sounds jarring.
Related
Give people something to link to so they can talk about your features and ideas
Creating dedicated web pages for projects, ideas, or product features aids discussions and sharing. Examples like ChatGPT Code Interpreter and Boring Technology showcase this. Proper documentation enhances usability and SEO.
"Authentic" is dead. And so is "is dead."
Jason Cohen critiques overused marketing phrases like "authentic" and "game-changing," urging for specificity and concrete examples in communication. He encourages innovation and fresh ideas over clichés in writing and marketing.
Examples of Great URL Design (2023)
The blog post emphasizes the importance of thoughtful URL design, showcasing examples from StackOverflow, Slack, and GitHub, and encourages readers to share their favorite effective URL designs.
Against Names
The article explores the challenges of naming in computer science, highlighting anonymous identifiers in version control and utility CSS as ways to simplify workflows while balancing named and unnamed elements.
Removing stuff is never obvious yet often better
Simplifying products by removing unnecessary features can enhance user engagement. Pinecone's complex pricing calculator deterred customers, but its removal increased sign-ups by 16% and inquiries by 90%.