{"id":6,"date":"2012-03-15T19:48:36","date_gmt":"2012-03-15T19:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ux.kinnser.net\/~ux\/?p=6"},"modified":"2018-09-25T22:31:35","modified_gmt":"2018-09-25T22:31:35","slug":"nouns-and-verbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/nouns-and-verbs\/","title":{"rendered":"Content strategy: nouns and verbs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the first things I did for Kinnser Software was begin to establish content strategy guidelines, and this was the first one. It was published in the Kinnser UX blog I started and maintained, as well as the living (coded) style guide I created. <\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>When writing for headers, buttons, navigation links, and similar items, the guidelines are simple:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Use nouns for things.<\/li>\n<li>Use verbs for actions.<\/li>\n<li>Avoid generic terms like &#8220;Submit,&#8221; as the action may not be interpreted correctly. Instead, describe exactly what the action will do. This is particularly important for our users, since the term &#8220;submit&#8221; can have multiple meanings. For example, Medicare claims are submitted. An example of good button text can now be seen in the Approve Claims area of Billing Manager [a key Kinnser feature]. Instead of &#8220;Submit,&#8221; the button helpfully says &#8220;Approve Claims for Submission.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Avoid gerunds: verbs functioning as nouns by adding &#8220;-ing&#8221; to the end of the word. For people for whom English is a second language, this form can be confusing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-6\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/nouns-and-verbs\/?share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\" ><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-linkedin\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-linkedin-6\" class=\"share-linkedin sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/nouns-and-verbs\/?share=linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on LinkedIn\" ><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-6\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/nouns-and-verbs\/?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\" ><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the first things I did for Kinnser Software was begin to establish content strategy guidelines, and this was the first one. It was published in the Kinnser UX blog I started and maintained, as well as the living (coded) style guide I created. When writing for headers, buttons, navigation links, and similar items,&hellip;<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-6\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/nouns-and-verbs\/?share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\" ><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-linkedin\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-linkedin-6\" class=\"share-linkedin sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/nouns-and-verbs\/?share=linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on LinkedIn\" ><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-6\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/nouns-and-verbs\/?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\" ><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[12,103],"tags":[66,69,105,104],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-writing","tag-buttons","tag-content-strategy","tag-healthcare-software","tag-style-guide"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9aciW-6","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":258,"url":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/actual-practical-ux-strategy\/","url_meta":{"origin":6,"position":0},"title":"Actual, practical UX strategy","date":"May 22, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Paul Bryan, of the LinkedIn UX Strategy and Planning group, contributed There is no such thing as UX strategy, on UXmatters. Bryan's clearly got a handle on the subject, but some of the user responses (\"This UX Strategist role should be a skill of a PO;\" \"I thought we decided\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;design&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32,"url":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/designing-for-purpose\/","url_meta":{"origin":6,"position":1},"title":"Designing for purpose","date":"August 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the first of several presentations applying different psychological systems to user experience. Designing for users is a tough job. To optimize our designs and strategy, UX professionals frequently turn to concept\/site testing. The problem is that most design strategy and testing thinks in terms of input \u2192 output.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;design thinking&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":83,"url":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/intention-focused-design\/","url_meta":{"origin":6,"position":2},"title":"Intention-focused design (UX Matters article)","date":"August 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Pabini Gabriel-Petit approached me for an article in UXmatters in May, 2012, and in July published Intention-Focused Design: Applying Perceptual Control Theory to Discover User Intent. Below is the article as it appeared. At this point in the development of the field of user experience, I'm assuming that most good\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;design thinking&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"A UX-style PCT user feedback loop","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/aeoneal.com\/imagery\/blog\/intentionalux-fig1.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":646,"url":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/aldrich-on-educational-engagement-and-powerpoint\/","url_meta":{"origin":6,"position":3},"title":"Aldrich on educational engagement (and PowerPoint)","date":"January 29, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Simulations are powerful when students need to be engaged more than they are. Clearly, this is an area in which distributed classrooms have suffered, as death by PowerPoint has not just been refined in many programs but almost weaponized to military specifications. \u2014 Clark Aldrich","rel":"","context":"In &quot;inspiration&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":944,"url":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/anti-fragile-ux\/","url_meta":{"origin":6,"position":4},"title":"Anti-fragile UX","date":"June 22, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a repost of an idea I've dreamt of for nearly a decade (and leveraged to help improve design thinking and approaches, though not to the extent described below). Now, in this time of AI, global audiences, and awareness of accessibility, it seems this could be possible. (Please note:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;cognitions&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":363,"url":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/narrative-taxonomy-in-ux\/","url_meta":{"origin":6,"position":5},"title":"Narrative taxonomy in UX","date":"July 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I've submitted a proposal for SXSW 2014! Vote here. User experience and storytelling go hand in hand. UX professionals consciously apply personas, use case scenarios, underlying narratives, content strategy, and visual elements to provide a stage on which users play. But there is a key element missing in this drama:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;design thinking&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":732,"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions\/732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}