Naming things is hard

It's a well known phrase with software developers that "naming things is hard", but what about hardware products? What are the worst offenders and how should it be done? 

This post was prompted by a couple of social media posts, taking a look at two culprits. The first was camera model names

and this one humorously takes a peek at how monitors get their names

 But it's not just the incomprehensible nature of names, even the camera press can find the repetition hard to deal with - Opinion: Camera names are getting ridiculous.

One camera company that is doing something a bit more useful is Sigma. They switched from the standard lens names like "DC MACRO OS HSM", which only make sense once you know how to decode. They've helped consumers by giving them labels like "Art", "Contemporary", and "Sports" that at least help guide to the intended use. "Contemporary" is an interesting way of saying beginner or budget without putting people off ;-) 

And here is where I think all names should go, what is it used for? who uses it? This was one of the things my colleague Jamal was looking at during the first lockdown when creating the Instagram accounts to go with a "Where Could I Travel?" promotion. He was thinking about why people travel. So he came up with Where could I eat? Where could I relax? Where could I adventure? etc.

This is one of the reasons that I'm a fan of having the "Jobs to be done" model in my toolbox. Empathy for why your customers want your product and what this does for them makes for a much better connection. In a previous company I worked for they took matters into their own hands and the internal IT dept renamed laptop models according to the profile of the users, like "road warrior" or "presenter", to help guide what you needed to request. 


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