two simple things to improve the user experience

“We use a lot of jargon when discussing, designing and creating
our software. When we’re working on something that’s complex or
new, new words and phrases (or new meanings on old ones) will crop
up in our language when discussing it with each other. The world
outside our creative circles remains innocent to these new bits of
language floating about. This is all well and good .. until the
jargon starts creeping outwards and meets people using the
software.

“In Plasma, we try to keep the jargon we’ve invented to help us
work together out of the user interfaces. It’s not a cashew, it’s a
toolbox. It’s not a Plasmoid, it’s a Plasma Widget. It’s not
“Plasma” it’s “the desktop shell” or “the workspace” (if we’re
being more inclusive and talking about KWin, etc as well). It’s not
a Containment, it’s an Activity if it’s on a main, full-screen
layer (e.g. desktop or dashboard) and something descriptive for the
context (e.g. Panel) if elsewhere. It’s not always easy because to
us these words are just second-nature.”

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