So when you upload images into WordPress, you see a progress bar that says “Crunching.” Crunching is sexy. Crunching sounds exciting. Crunching makes you feel like you’re on the edge of some new functionality that is so revolutionary, no other term can quite describe it. But really, all crunching means is resizing. When you upload images in WordPress, the image editor resizes the original image into three separate images: thumbnail, medium, and large.

"Crunching" is really just resizing

The problem with using the term “crunching” rather than “resizing” is that, although it’s cool, most users don’t actually realize what’s going on. They don’t realize that they can set the dimensions that the image is being resized to. They don’t realize this because crunching is vague. Crunching is eating grape nuts, or stepping on cheerios, or feeding tickets into Chuck-E-Cheese counting machines. Crunching rarely means resizing. The tradeoff for cool interface terms is confusion.

I’ve been uploading images into WordPress for my posts for months, always watching the crunching bar extend across the screen. Just last week I made the connection between the dimensions under Settings > Media and the sizes that the uploaded images “crunch” to. Making this connection has been tremendously helpful, and I can’t help but wonder if better terms would have helped me see this connection earlier.

This page doesn't even use the word "crunching"

Even if WordPress kept the cute term “crunching,” they should change the title of this page from Image Sizes to Crunching Sizes, or something.

Burning

Burning is another great example. Feedburner allows you to “burn” a feed, and when you go to their site, you’re presented with a large field that says “Burn a feed right now?” It sounds cool to burn a feed. I’ve got a few things I’d like to burn, and the idea of watching a feed burn right before my eyes appeals to the pyro inside of me. Yeah, let’s burn my feed. Right now. Burn baby burn. But like crunching, “burning” in the context of RSS feeds means almost nothing.

"Burning" is really just routing

In fact, were Feedburner not the only application in its class (surprisingly), other services using clearer terms might fare a lot better. When you “burn” a feed, you’re really just routing your feed through Feedburner. You can track hits to the Feedburner feed because you’re routing it through them. Because your original feed is routed through Feedburner, you can keep the same Feedburner feed even if your original feed changes. Does “route” communicate all that? Not really. But it communicates more than “burn.”

Companies face tough decisions. Give something a cool name, and you create a little community that speaks a unique language. This unique language may give users a sense of pride and exclusivity, possibly. On the flip side, the unfamiliar terms exclude newcomers and create confusion.

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For example, our current department’s name is “User Education.” Because of this, every time a user has a how-to question about the application, they send the user to me to be educated. It would not be so, I believe, if our department name were different.

Lately I’ve been having conversations with a QA guy as I carpool to work. We’ve been talking about roles. Because I am a “technical writer,” he wonders why I feel I should comment on software prototypes, or interact with users. “You’re a W-R-I-T-E-R,” he says. “You shouldn’t be interfacing with the customer. That would be overlapping other people’s jobs. You should be writing help material. That’s what writers do.”

People make decisions all the time based on connotations of job titles and department names. For example:

• A user needs help with the application. Who should he call? “User Education” or “Information Design”?
• You’re setting up a meeting to evaluate prototypes. Who should be included? “User Information Development” or “Technical Publications”?
• You need to develop some e-learning materials for training. Who should you call? “Learning Support” or “Strategic Communications and Media”?

In each case, I bet you leaned toward the first option. Your department’s name does affect how others perceive the role of your department. I guarantee you will be asked to provide more user training and support with a name like “User Assistance” than “Communication Strategy and Design.”

Given the importance of choosing a department name, here are some options. Many of these were sent to me by tech writers over Twitter. Others I pulled from the archives of the Techwr-l listserv.

• Information Design
• Information Development
• Learning Support
• Technical Publications
• Technical Publications Office
• Technical Communications
• Training and Publications
• Design and Development
• User Information Development
• Technical Information Development
• Technical Documentation
• Documentation
• IT Documentation
• The Knowledge Group
• Knowledge Transfer
• Strategic Communications & Media Group
• Customer Focused Communications
• Global Content and Training Products
• Customer Communications
• User Success Group
• Corporate Publishing
• User Knowledge Center
• User Assistance
• User Help Department
• Help Design
• Documentation Analysis
• Information Architect and Strategist
• Communication Strategies
• Customer Focused Communication Design
• Communication Strategies and Design
• User Assistance Strategies and Design
• Information Strategies and Design

And a few silly names:

• Fellowship Renowned for Excellent Documentation (FRED)
• Masters of All Spatial Order, Chronological Hierarchies and Interesting Sorts of Trivial Stuff
• The tellers of how stuff works and what is
• Department of User Intelligence (DUI)

None of the department names jumps out at me as “the one.” In the end, I’m convinced that a slightly vague name is better than a limiting name. I’d rather be “Information Development” than “IT Documentation.” In the former, you might contribute to prototype design; in the latter, you would more likely just describe the design.

I would rather be “Information Strategies” than “User Knowledge Center.” In the former, I might make high-level analytical decisions about branding, user awareness, and task efficiency. In the latter, someone would assign me to assemble a knowledge base.

I would rather people said, “Communication Strategies and Analysis – what the heck is that? Rather than “Learning Support? Oh, good, I have a group of new users that needs a Webex.”

Have you ever had a department name that you worked against you? What department name do you prefer?

Additional Reading

• Tech Writer: “Someone who writes as opposed to someone who rides something.”