Comments on: Terminology and Jargon http://northern-user-experience.org/2008/07/09/terminology-and-jargon Community blog Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:05:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Rachel http://northern-user-experience.org/2008/07/09/terminology-and-jargon/comment-page-1#comment-26 Rachel Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:27:59 +0000 http://northern-user-experience.org/?p=22#comment-26 Well, it wasn't really a question - more an unfocussed venting of spleen! Jargon is part of every profession - and effective jargon makes communications between professionals easier, provided it's the *same* jargon. Well, it wasn’t really a question – more an unfocussed venting of spleen!

Jargon is part of every profession – and effective jargon makes communications between professionals easier, provided it’s the *same* jargon.

]]> By: petebagnall http://northern-user-experience.org/2008/07/09/terminology-and-jargon/comment-page-1#comment-25 petebagnall Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:40:31 +0000 http://northern-user-experience.org/?p=22#comment-25 I generally try to avoid much of the jargon and just speak plain english, and be explicit when explaining things. Partly that's because I've crossed a few of the boundaries from geek to designer, to HCI practitioner, back to geek, over to.... well, you get the idea. But the upshot is that all the conflicting terms are well and truly mangled together in my head. That said though, I generally understand use cases to means what developers think of as use cases, part of UML and all that side. Scenarios I tend to understand to mean things with Personas in them. For me scenarios covers everything from the very vague "Bob needs to make sure he gets up in the morning, so he does magic with his waker-upper device" right though to "Bob needs to get up for an early meeting so he picks up his alarm clock and turns the alarm time knob until the hand poinst at....". Both those are scenarios to me. I heard someone say, very rightly that you get problem/solution pairs forming so the scenario gets richer through the design to include the solution as well as the original problem and the problem and solution interact with each other changing both. I've not heard those terms used like that in the real world, but that may have more to do with the little corner of the real world that I inhabit than anything else! At the end of the day, over complex jargon is a barrier to communication in my book, so as I say - I try to avoid it when I can. I'm not sure that really very helpful sadly! I generally try to avoid much of the jargon and just speak plain english, and be explicit when explaining things. Partly that’s because I’ve crossed a few of the boundaries from geek to designer, to HCI practitioner, back to geek, over to…. well, you get the idea. But the upshot is that all the conflicting terms are well and truly mangled together in my head.

That said though, I generally understand use cases to means what developers think of as use cases, part of UML and all that side. Scenarios I tend to understand to mean things with Personas in them. For me scenarios covers everything from the very vague “Bob needs to make sure he gets up in the morning, so he does magic with his waker-upper device” right though to “Bob needs to get up for an early meeting so he picks up his alarm clock and turns the alarm time knob until the hand poinst at….”. Both those are scenarios to me. I heard someone say, very rightly that you get problem/solution pairs forming so the scenario gets richer through the design to include the solution as well as the original problem and the problem and solution interact with each other changing both.

I’ve not heard those terms used like that in the real world, but that may have more to do with the little corner of the real world that I inhabit than anything else!

At the end of the day, over complex jargon is a barrier to communication in my book, so as I say – I try to avoid it when I can.

I’m not sure that really very helpful sadly!

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