Comments on: Does your labelling cause confusion?

By: Mike Healy

Mike Healy — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:57:00 +0000

All perfectly logical, but also in my opinion part of how vocabulary erodes.

Suppose you make that label “Former Students”, that perpetuates the ignorance of what “Alumni” means. People who don’t know what it means stay comfortable, and fewer people will learn the word. Eventually you won’t be able to use the word Alumni anywhere because it hasn’t been used anywhere for so long. Then “Former Students” might have the same problem. People mightn’t know what “former” means, so you call the page “Past Students” and so it goes…

Language requires maintenance.

By: inserthtml

inserthtml — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:49:00 +0000

When glancing through websites I have sometimes been thrown off when they don’t follow the status quo of labelling, and I can sometimes miss important stuff like share, comment and subscribe buttons.

By: Luca Boškin

Luca Boškin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:27:00 +0000

I totally agree with you. Good labelling is key also when translating a website. In my experience, I’ve found bilingual visitors (both new and returning ones) switching from one language to the other in order to check if the content is relevant or not.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:06:00 +0000

I didn’t say it was easy :) If it was then people wouldn’t need to hire experts in the field :)
Cheers,
Paul

Paul Boag [ Web Guy, Writer and Polymath ]
W: boagworld.com (http://boagworld.com)
T: @boagworld (http://twitter.com/boagworld)
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By: Alycia Eck

Alycia Eck — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:52:00 +0000

While I agree with you, there’s the issue of finding labels that makes sense to four key audiences AND that all internal stakeholders agree on.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:54:00 +0000

Actually that was a real example. Many undergraduates do not know what the term meant.
Cheers,
Paul

Paul Boag [ Web Guy, Writer and Polymath ]
W: boagworld.com
T: @boagworld
M: 07760 123 120

By: Foamcow

Foamcow — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:53:00 +0000

I would hope a prospective university student would know what the word “Alumni” meant or at least not be phased by it – and maybe even look it up.

Your point is a valid one though. We should always strive for simple language in everything we do. There is often little need to write something in such a way that is is only understood by the lingual elite yet sometimes it is done to attempt to inflate importance.

As with so much in web design, it is about knowing your audience and working to make their experience as smooth as possible. By that token, if you are building a site for English graduates and professors the use of the word Alumni would probably be perfectly fine. Whilst working towards simplicity we don’t necessarily need to dumb down to the lowest common denominator if that visitor is unlikely to ever visit the site.