What’s in a name?

A case study on finding the perfect word when one doesn’t exist

“It needs to feel aspirational yet relatable, direct but evasive…”

If you’re a fellow content strategist or designer, you’re probably familiar with this type of challenge. There can be an intangible nature to words and design that makes it difficult for stakeholders to pinpoint exactly what they’re looking for, yet seemingly easy for them to know when it misses the mark. But that’s part of my job: wading through the ambiguity to create clarity, structure, and forge a clear(er) path forward.

Recently, my team and I were tasked with the redesign of our app’s product marketplace (a.k.a. the part of the app where people can apply for and compare credit cards, bank accounts, and more). We’d spent weeks designing and iterating — but as we brainstormed several potential names for the experience, nothing felt quite right.

For example, a conventional name like “Shop” for a product marketplace didn’t align with how our users thought of our product offerings (“shopping for a bank account” is not exactly a common turn of phrase) — and it also lacked the notion of personalization, which was a core aspect of the experience that we wanted to reflect. Alternatively, something like “Opportunities” felt a bit too jargon-y and we were concerned that our users wouldn’t actually know what they could find there.

So we took a step back and took a more deliberate approach to naming.

Start at the beginning (the value of grounding)

Before idea generation (my favorite part of the design process), it felt important to ground ourselves in the context of the problem. I asked myself, “what is the core purpose and value of the experience we’ve designed?” I looked back at our experience’s value proposition and worked with my product, design, and research partners to align on a set of criteria that the navigation name must match. This turned out to be helpful for several reasons:

1. Internal alignment — Being specific and explicit about our expectations and requirements helped us verbalize some of the intangibles and work through discrepancies at the jump.

• For example, we kept saying that the name must “make sense” or “flow” with the other navigation names, but we discovered that we had different ideas of what this meant. Through discussion, we defined “flow” as matching the user’s expectation of what they’d see from a financial app and from NerdWallet (answers that we agreed to find through testing).

2. A foundation for evaluation — Having a set of criteria that was co-signed by the whole team helped us objectively evaluate our many options. It also identified questions that we still needed answers to, which helped structure our research plan.

The criteria (defining the intangible)

When all was said and done, we landed on the following criteria. The name must…

1. Meet the user’s expectations before, during, and after use.

• Before: Does it help you understand what you’ll be able to do in the experience?
• During: Does it describe the content and features you’ve found once you’re in the experience?
• After: Does it help you remember what you found and reinforce the experience?

2. Fit in the context of the broader app

• Does the name flow with the other tab names? Does it match the overall NerdWallet voice and align with what users expect from us?

3. Communicate the value of the experience to the user

• Does it show the user the benefits of shopping for financial products through our app versus other channels?

Themes and name generation (ideation but with some guardrails)

And now for the fun part — ideation! I started with four themes that ranged from abstract to concrete.

This gave me space to think in the extremes of both directions while still tethering myself to the value proposition. After coming up with several words in each thematic bucket, I extended an invitation for a naming party with my teammates to make the list even more exhaustive. After weighing the names against our internal criteria, we shortlisted eight to test with some of our users.

User testing (checking the work)

It goes without saying — but I’ll say it anyway — that this project would not have been possible without the help of our amazing user experience researcher. We ran two studies with users to help us understand how each name measured up against our criteria.

The first test was qualitative. It revealed that the themes of “improvement” and “personalization” most closely aligned with how our users perceived the experience. At that point, one name emerged as a frontrunner; however, after I presented the outcome of the study and the name recommendation, a few stakeholders expressed a desire for more quantitative information before we could make the final call.

We then ran a second test, this time to gather specific data points on preference and perception, based on our criteria. This additional round of testing proved to be extremely helpful in illustrating the nuances of user perception between the names — especially names within the same theme.

Findings (so…what happened?)

Armed with the results of the usability tests, we compared each name on the shortlist against our criteria. Although the first test led us to the name “Maximize,” our second round of testing led us to a name that more consistently checked all the boxes and performed well: “Optimize.” Interestingly, even though both names were in the same thematic bucket, users perceived slight nuances between the two. “Optimize” felt more actionable, personalized, and aligned most closely with the product experience whereas “Maximize” promised a slightly more robust outcome than what was realistic for the product at the time.

And so, after crossing our t’s dotting our i’s, collaborative brainstorming, and two rounds of user testing… we renamed the navigation to “Optimize” (*cue fireworks*).

El fin (what I learned)

Although I may have just told a neat, coherent story, it’s important to note that this project was not as linear as it might seem. I spent a good chunk of time in the land of ambiguity, trying to evaluate the best step forward before actually taking any step. I was also prepared to accept the results after the first test and, in all honesty, felt some initial frustration when stakeholders pushed for a second one. Looking back, I’m glad for the push. It gave us more confidence in the results, helped us better understand user preferences, and ultimately led to what I believe was a stronger outcome.

Creating structure and defining the intangible is not always (seldom? never?) straightforward or easy — but then again, figuring out how to make it so is all part of the fun. And for us content strategists, it’s a kind of fun we get to have a lot.

Want to be part of a team that writes about stuff like this? Check out open roles in Design + User Experience at NerdWallet.