Mindful Buttons - Part II. WWW - Warm Web Word

As we saw, in the previous article "Mindful Buttons - Part I. Or My Grandma Has A Right to Understand My Work" there are many paradoxes and contradictions in interface language. It’s not easy to describe with appropriate words technical operations and functions named with a certain word on the button. But despite these operations are becoming more and more complicated from day to day, the space for their description permitted on the button space remains the same. That’s why the language part of a modern interface is becoming more and more critical and specific.

And now – attention – just imagine such awful case when this system’s interface should be translated in other language…

The first – and very important moment you face is that cliché phrases and used-in-practice words and word combinations can not be directly translated into another language. You have to understand what words reflect the same mentality, the same cultural background under it.

Let me just show one example with such widespread function like Sharing. The thing is that when being directly translated to Russian, for example (and it’s usually done in the same way), it doesn’t have the commonly-used and well-established web buzz word, as it has it in English. And it’s not recognizable for many users in Russian Web. One of possible variants may be “Publish”, or “Open access”, or “Open for others”, for example. What is to be taken into consideration here is the Russian language peculiarities and traditional vocabulary used for description of some similar actions and functions in everyday life.

 The second thing concerning generally used expressions in IT and Web vocabulary is that there are many of them which don’t give the real understanding of the matter when being used for the first time, and they become usual for a person just after some time passes when the user got used to them and has a little bit of experience.

But for a general user – for non web-geek – it’s not understandable enough to see such a word like «Smart folders» for example.

How to get rid of incomprehensible and obscure words and how to start working on improvement of the existing foreign web-vocabulary?

Maybe, it’s to start changing it unwittingly for users and make it more convenient for understanding.

To compare, just recollect the situation when you show a certain system to your grand-grand-ma.

You show her a word “Forward” a message. She knows very well and und  erstands its meaning when explained once. Don’t forget to use a little icon always coming with the word “Forward” on the button. This icon is not understandable being used alone. But with the clear word it enters unwittingly to our mind on the subconscious level.  And when the grandma is used to seeing and using this button and understands very well what it means, it will be enough for her, when she sees the same icon only (which was not understandable in the beginning) in other products.

But time changes everything, and the progress dictates its demands. That’s why it’s not surprising that the function hidden behind the button «Forward» becomes also wider: let it be the function of not only forwarding to one person, but plus the possibility to forward it to a certain group of people by one click. Then, it will be too long to write the word “Forward” and add the icon on such button at that. But we know – there is the fixed pattern under the icon of forwarding, and if we add one more icon depicting the possibility of forwarding to multiple contacts or just type there a word like «To all», or «Select contacts» for example, it will seem to be more clear and understandable.

No doubts, having a common understanding of the generally used button icons and pictures, it becomes easier to comprehend more complicated additional functions being rooted to the general function.

So, finally – study carefully all words and phrases used in everyday practice of your prospective foreign clients. It’s hardly possible to find a warm and understandable word for a complicated function. But the interface has to be easy. It has to enjoy users and get them free from thinking hard about different meanings of the button which is not clear and isn’t findable. Interface has to be lively. Just like the life itself.