Naming things with other people
Half the arguments in a design review are really disagreements about what to call something.
Mara Elsen
Editor
Two people can look at the same component and mean entirely different things by the word "card". Nobody notices until the build, when the disagreement arrives as a bug.
Name the thing before you style it
Agreeing on vocabulary early is cheaper than agreeing on it late. When a name is contested, that is a signal the concept underneath is not settled yet, and no amount of visual polish will settle it.
Write the glossary down
A single shared page listing what each term means, with one example, ends more debates than any process change we have tried. It also onboards new people in an afternoon rather than a month.
Let names change
A glossary is a living document. When a name stops describing what the thing has become, rename it deliberately, in one pass, everywhere. Half-renamed concepts are worse than badly named ones.
