My company is developing software that, among other things, manages large
amounts of member information. To better manage the interaction with such
large datasets, we've incorporated the concept of 'Views' in the same way that
Microsoft Outlook (and SQL Builder, for that matter) uses them. If you aren't
familiar with Views in Outlook (I suspect that about 90% of users are not), a
simple description would be a dynamic snapshot of your data, including any
filters and layout options. While this might seem simple, it starts to get
complicated when you start saving a particular View, choosing among pre-saved
Views, generating reports dependant on a View, etc.
The concept is a good one and allows users a lot of power with how they
interface with data. This is enterprise-level software, so we assume there
will be some training involved (although it's been my task for the past year to
get the company out of the mindset that we should rely on training rather than
usability), but my initial user testing has found that the concept is escaping
most people and I think it often boils down to the term itself. Even if I show
them what it does (and they pretty much always like it when they see it), they
still often cannot get over the initial hurdle of the naming convention.
Granted, the word 'View' really can be either a noun or a verb ("What a great
view!"; "How can I view that data?"), but it seems people are either used to
only using it as a verb with regards to software or they can't handle using it
so fluidly between both conjugations (I don't think I've ever used that word
before). When we start saying, "Click here to view your Views" then we see
eyes glazing over and drool forming at the corner of the mouths of even the
most competent users.
I have no problem breaking with Microsoft conventions, but I had two questions
for the group:
1) What is your experience and/or wisdom (not necessarily connected) on
the use of verbs as nouns in naming software functionality?
2) Do you have any other brilliant names for 'Views'?
Thanks!
__________________
Sterling Koch
UI/UX Designer
Rapattoni Corporation
98 W. Cochran Street
Simi Valley, CA 93065
1-800-722-7338
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
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