Global naming poll

Elements
1

Since we announced the new Globals feature a few users have politely suggested we call it something else. We’re pretty set on calling them Globals, however, if it’s a unanimous vote against it, we’ll look at changing the name.

Cast your vote, and if you think it should be “something else” please post your suggestion in the comments below.

  • Keep the name “Globals”
  • Don’t mind, call it whatever you like
  • Change it to something else…
0 voters

Not promising anything, but I think it’s a good idea to get more of a general consensus from everyone in the community :smiling_face:

And really, at the end of the day, as long as the feature works it doesn’t really matter what it’s called :laughing:

2

Unfortunately, what a feature is called does matter as it often provides users with an initial mental model from which to build their understanding of a feature/product and how it might be utilized. Metaphor is often also used to help create associations with other concepts designers wish to relate to a feature (ie. desktop, folder, templates, menus, clouds, etc) to further develop a users’ mental model.

You can often flush out possible names by describing the feature in text, much as you would in documentation, product marketing, or presentations.

What do globals do?
What benefits do globals provide users?
How are globals best utilized?

From my understanding, globals provide a means for users to create reusable templates that can then be combined to create complex layouts that can easily be managed across an entire site.

Globals provide users with personally meaningful templated regions of a page or layout. These can be as small as a piece of text, or as big as a full page layout combining additional templates and regions that can easily be modified, reused, and updated across a site.

Globals are best utilized by thinking about the behaviour, pattern or utility required of the templated region. For example; page headers, footers, menus, galleries, hero images, carousels, strap lines, descriptions, etc.

For me, ‘template’ is the word that keeps coming to mind. ‘Layout’ is too ambiguous, ‘element’ is easily confused with other elements, ‘component’ is possibly inferring more than they are, ‘fragment’ isn’t bad, but I fear it has baggage, and ‘global’ doesn’t really communicate much to the user (unless they’re a programmer) IMHO.

3

After thinking about this for a while the word Global makes the most sense and is used by many developers as the common word for this.

I am wondering now about linking includes for php function files.

4

@dan Hi, Hey I was joking, Globals is fine… hmm but Elements with Globals inside… I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to ask for Elements replacement ? :yum:

5

The way I understand it is you have individual elements which are just called elements (for example an image element or a grid element, etc.), and then you can create global elements which you can reuse, globally, across your entire site, hence the name globals.

The global could be comprised of a single element (for example you want the same image across all of your pages, so you turn an image element into a global), or it could be comprised of a whole set of elements (for example you want to create a navigation menu and logo that’s the same across the top of all pages).

To me the name globals makes sense. I’m interested, what about the name “globals” is causing confusion for some?

6

@dang I think for me it’s simply that the word ‘global’ is an adjective, which on it’s own doesn’t actually communicate what it is. It’s like saying something is a ‘large’ or a ‘strange’ without actually stating what is large or strange.

Of course you could call them ‘global elements’, (like ‘global variables’) but if in your documentation, interface, marketing, forums, etc they are simply referred to ambiguously as ‘globals’ then they are likely be a source of confusion for new (non-developer) users.

Now of course you can turn many adjectives into pluralized nouns by adding an ‘s’, but I’m not sure ‘globals’ is an intuitive conversion for non-dev folks. Nouns defining things tend to be easier for users to grok.

That said, if you really have your heart set on using ‘globals’ go for it. Judging by the poll it doesn’t seem to be a problem for your existing users.

7

Hmm, so maybe in the UI something like:

Elements

All the elements here

Global Elements

All the globals here

And then make sure it’s documented everywhere that “globals” mean Global Elements…

3 Likes
8

You could even go so far as to name them ‘Global Site Elements’ which further clarifies the scope of the ‘global-ness’.

1 Like
9

Global Elements is a nice compromise … describes more accurately what they do in documentation but allows for shortening to “Globals”

1 Like