What do you call that object you use to change the channels when you’re watching television?
In our house, we call it the pointy-click, which caused huge hilarity among the teens’ friends when this was revealed. It turned out, of course, that they all used different names for it… one called it the flicker-flacker, another called it the box, and so on. Personally, I think ‘pointy-click’ is very apt.
It didn’t seem as though anyone used an ‘official’ name (which is, I suppose, the remote control device), and there wasn’t much consistency in usage either.
This made me think about the words you’re using on your corporate website, especially in navigation. There’s a lot of scope for misunderstanding, or simply lack of comprehension, with the result that the visitor doesn’t achieve their goal in visiting. This might be because:
- you’re using internal language on an external-facing site, so the word isn’t understood
- you’re using industry terminology without explanation, and again, the word isn’t understood
- you’re using jargon or catchphrases that aren’t comprehensible to someone not a native speaker of your language or familiar with your culture
- your website visitor uses a different word to describe something – like our pointy-click example
- the visitor just doesn’t know the word you’re using, any word for the thing they want to find, or even what it is they’re looking for
- the website search requires an exact match, so doesn’t find the not-quite-right word the visitor searches for
These all have different solutions, from re-evaluating your search function to minor rewrites of content to avoid, for instance, sporting references. To help educate the visitor, you could consider adding footnotes to explain acronyms or abbreviations; glossaries of technical terms; or even something like a ‘for the new investor’ section as Credit Suisse and Novartis (among others) do.
Incidentally, I asked around at work, and other terms for the remote were revealed, including the dit-dit, and the magic. Now I like that… ‘Who’s got the magic?’
Lucy is Editor at Corporate Eye
This is something we come across predominantly in the oil and gas industry and new tech companies when we build there websites as a lot of words and phrases need explanation. However, glossaries seem to be the most popular option. Have you come across any really good examples of glossaries?
Thanks
Tom