Why Terminology Is Important

Much of the reason is obvious. How do you discuss things without using names? How do you communicate if the names you use do not have consistent meanings? We use names to identify, to describe, and to seek out things. We use names to break down and get a grasp of something we are unfamiliar with. Using consistent terminology helps us understand issues better and communicate better—and simplifying and making our user interface terminology consistent helps our users understand and take advantage of the interfaces we design. Ask any technical writer what the biggest user interface problems are and you will find that inconsistent terminology is always at the top of their list.

Here's an example of how consistent terminology can affect how we think. I once worked on a document retrieval system that used at least six different equivalent terms to describe the documents it retrieved. The names were used consistently to describe different aspects of the same document retrieval process, yet there was absolutely no significant distinction between the terms from the user's point of view. (In case you are skeptical, the terms used were "document," "article," "topic," "subject," "heading," and "title." The terms "reference" and "citation" were also used, but those terms actually could be distinguished from the others.) It took me a fair amount of time to realize that all these terms described the same thing. Imagine how confused the program's users were.

Another good example is OLE. Or is that COM? No wait—it's ActiveX. To be honest, depending on the context, I'm not really sure—I have to look it up. Is it ActiveX automation? But isn't automation also part of COM? I think the official term is now just plain "automation."

Using different terminology to describe the same thing is one of the simplest things you can do to confuse everybody. And changing terminology after everyone is accustomed to it certainly doesn't help. Both situations make a program difficult to discuss, describe, and document. It even makes it difficult to program. For example, most of the MFC COM classes are still named OLE and are unlikely to change anytime soon because changing the names would break a lot of code.

TIP

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Use the same term to describe the same thing. Using different terms for items that have only subtle differences will confuse users.

Ultimately, a little work choosing consistent terminology early on will save everyone a whole lot of work later.