On the oral tradition

Most of what I've been doing lately is information architecture. Most of that is about finding the right name for things. It's a silent, invisible task that makes all the difference.

I don't know of any other tool that accomplishes as much as a robust, coherent nomenclature.

Giving things names brings them into existence. It makes them interactive. They gain the ability to hold our attention.

Giving objects the proper name puts them into their right position in their environment. They click into place and start to make sense. It fills them with meaning.

Most people struggle with non-linear hierarchies that are necessary for the sorts of sophisticated applications that require dedicated designers. But since we're all fairly competent with language, naming is an especially potent tool. The right name bypasses people's competence and taps into our common ability to communicate.

A good nomenclature removes the need for many UI acrobatics. It reduces the need for visual variation. For example, people remember things as the black button and the blue button because they don't fully understand the difference between saving, and publishing or deleting and removing. But if the meaning of the words sinks in, then the need for that visual variation drops so we can get away with less variation. This means that our interfaces can be richer and denser without being bloated or cumbersome.

The reason you never hear of this anywhere, certainly not in UX talks or case studies is because it's hard to explain. Once you find the right combination, all the other ones sound stupid. In hindsight, the right name doesn't just look obvious, it looks inevitable. The same holds for most architectural decisions.

names are important

وَعَلَّمَ ءَادَمَ ٱلْأَسْمَآءَ كُلَّهَا ثُمَّ عَرَضَهُمْ عَلَى ٱلْمَلَـٰٓئِكَةِ فَقَالَ أَنۢبِـُٔونِى بِأَسْمَآءِ هَـٰٓؤُلَآءِ إِن كُنتُمْ صَـٰدِقِينَ ”And He taught Adam the names - all of them. Then He showed them to the angels and said, "Inform Me of the names of these, if you are truthful.” Quran 2:31

Proper names are not just names, they are recipes, keys, and descriptions of things.

What we think of as design is but a parody of design, a caricature, a cartoonish version for the layman. Those of us who aspire to do better are faced with the challenge of conveying the importance of invisible decisions to those who don't see them before we get to help them with their own problems.

This is my current quarrel with case studies. I can't write them anymore. At some point, they just lost all meaning. I'd have to explain every different permutation for it to make any sense. It's ludicrous.

Mystics of every creed surrendered to the fact that carrying information in the form of systemic analysis sometimes becomes a disservice to the information. At some point, when you're dealing with fundamental mechanics, like say, the use of language, analysis doesn't increase clarity. Analytical reasoning finds its limit and experiential understanding must replace it.

That's why many grand masters of thought have put their energy into their oral practice, a more experiential medium. Socrates, Pythagoras and even the authors of the greatest books, Laozi and Confuscius didn’t write them themselves. It's not an evasion, it's a bold stand against shallowness and nonsense. There's courage in shunning the parody and embracing the silent, thankless toils that hold up the truth. Nobody can know, but that's ok. At least it’s not wrong.