[Usability] Re: Usability (was Re: Yelp)

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

ons 2002-01-30 klockan 04.44 skrev Daniel Carrera:
> I'm glad that things aren't as bad as they seem.  However, a good name
> is still ... good  :)
> 
> I liked Nicholas' idea: "Advisor".  It's short, understandable and easy to
> translate.

Hmm, personally "Advisor" makes me imagine a clone of "Clippy". ;-)


> For instance, I actually didn't know that "yelp" was a sound
> (English is my second language, but I speak it about as well as my first -
> Spanish).

No, and I don't think it was meant to be understandable as a sound
either. It's just a "nonsense" name like "Evolution" and "Nautilus",
although it happened to be derived from the sound of the word for "Help"
in one language. But noone is expected to figure that out by themselves;
I certainly don't think that was the intention. It could just as easily
have been named "Blurrf" or something else without a meaning.


> A problem with "Yelp" is that it's not easy to translate.  Not all
> languages have have a similar word.  In the case of Spanish, there is
> *technically* a translation, but no one will know what it means.

Noone is expected to translate these names either. These names don't
make any "sense" in English either, and so there is no point in trying
to translate them. It's actually a disservice to the user, as help
forums, web sites etcetera for these pieces of software will be harder
to find if you don't know the original name. And the translation brings
no benefit at all in these cases, as it won't make anything clearer.
There's a reason "Microsoft Word" is called "Microsoft Word" in all
locales. It's more of a name than a description, and names shouldn't be
translated, they need to stay the same for identification purposes.

If it's "Help Browser", then there's a need for translation, but that's
another issue entirely.

Also, some names are particularily bad as they are metaphors in one
language only. "Red Carpet" comes to mind. This one would actually need
translation for the metaphor to work, but on the other hand there is the
thing about help forums, web sites etc, where a translation of the name
is a disservice as it will be harder to identify. So this is, in my
opinion, a very bad name on an application when it comes to localization
-- it both shouldn't and should be translated, since it only "works" in
English, but it has to stay identifyable.


Christian