Chapter 3 -- Establish Consistent Terminology

Chapter 3

Carmel, California, is world famous for its small-town charm and character. In addition to having Clint Eastwood as a former mayor, it has many other interesting characteristics, such as beautiful beaches, distinctive shops, fabulous art galleries, no franchise businesses, no mail boxes anywhere but at the post office, and most interestingly, no street numbers. Since I used to live two towns over in Monterey, I knew about these distinctions for years, but it wasn't until someone in Carmel gave me directions to their house that I fully appreciated the significance of not having street numbers. Without street numbers, residents can't just say they live at 123 Seventh Street. Rather, they must give directions such as "Our house is on Seventh Street, between San Carlos and Junipero. It is the light-gray house with white trim, on the north side next to the large oak tree...."

While not having street numbers might give Carmel character, not being able to easily find your way around does nothing for software. Yet programmers often seem reluctant to establish terminology to describe their programs. Often someone other than the programmers is responsible for deciding the names. But regardless of who is responsible, it is important to establish consistent terminology early in the software development process for all the significant elements of a program that will appear in the user interface. Because the terms you choose will often show up in the actual interface through menus, dialog boxes, status bar text, help systems, documentation, and so on, consistent terminology will both clarify the interface and make it more consistent. If you find yourself saying such things as "the second button on the window on the left-hand side of the screen—the Workspace window or whatever we end up calling it—needs to be larger…," you know you need to work on your terminology.