One thing that is incredibly important for teams is defining our terms. If we want to work successfully in large, complex systems we need these kind of agreements.
User testing goes a long way to bringing clarity with data, but sometimes it highlights the deeper issue behind the choice to be made. Take something as simple as button labeling. What’s clear, what’s conversational, and what converts?
Let’s look at label comparison through the lens of competing priorities (diagram below):
Users or Business - Are we aligning our labeling toward a business goal, or toward user comprehension? Are we actually building for users, or have we actually decided to pursue the business goal and attempting to quantify the business risk?
Brand or Users - It may sit okay with users, but does it fit the brand? How is the story the company is trying to tell shaped by the language being adopted?
SEO or Users - Is the SEO opportunity at odds with what users are searching for? How do we mitigate the risk of gaining traffic with lower engagement?
It’s important to accommodate users, but sometimes the brand is more important to users than dead-simple labeling. Companies will swing back and forth between convincing with an engaging brand story, and optimizing around the clearest terminology possible to retain users.
How do you know which phase you’re in?
Do you have another perspective on comparative lenses?
How about an anecdote on language or labeling from your experience?
OooOOoOo I like this a lot! As a user / consumer, I lean heavily on labels to guide me, it’s how I decide quickly if something’s clear or confusing. But I also enjoy when a brand adds personality and story, even if it’s less literal.
I’d be curious how often clarity beats out creativity.
This one is a thinker. I wonder how businesses really align their brand with business goals. My hunch is that the larger and more ‘enterprise’ the business, the less likely the biz goals line up with the brand they started with originally, and thus biz goals can quickly degrade the brand and ultimately user/customer trust.
