Terminology

[snakeling]

I'm trying to come up with a suitable name for the short menu that's on the profile, to the right of the statistics. I've checked other FAQs, and I see I'm not the only one who's stumped by the problem :)

Would profile menu, or maybe profile navigation menu, be clear enough, or do any of you have better ideas?

Thanks!

Comments

[zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com]

The good thing about using "profile menu" is that it's not spatially oriented. Different siteschemes may place that menu in different locations. I can, for example, imagine a site scheme where create/organize/read/explore is one vertical menu and the "profile menu" is horizontally where it's at on the default site scheme. Or where they're aligned in a row horizontally. Or where it floats on screen as you scroll. All sorts of things a person could do with CSS.

[forthwritten]

I agree - I'd really like to get away from spatially describing menus and instead describing them by function. We need to standardise names though or it just becomes a world of confusion.

[snakeling]

Definitely. Hence the post, so that we all use the same thing :)

[sophie]

Currently the sitescheme can't actually control where that menu goes; it's the same with all schemes.

Not that this is a reason to not do what you said, but I figured I'd say that.

(And actually, you've given me an idea for a way to allow these things to be doable by sitescheme. I'll need to poke people and see what they think.)

[zvi]

I was, uh, completely confused about which menu we were talking about. I was thinking it's the menu that, in tropo red, is up in the right hand corner on sitescheme pages, when I made this comment. *blushes* Later I figured out that it was the menu to allow you to modify your relationship to the account.

[rho]

I... really have no idea. Mind is totally blank trying to think of anything for this. I'd be happy to go with profile menu, unless anyone else has any better ideas.

[snakeling]

"Profile action menu"? That way if another menu appears on the profile page, we don't need to change the name.

[7rin.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'd go with profile navigation menu, as while it might be longer, it's a lot clearer - with the added bonus of it doesn't need to change its name if another menu happened to appear on the profile page.

[snakeling]

Good point.

afuna says it's called action links in the code, so what about "profile action menu"?

[afuna]

In code, it's being called the user link bar /action links, but neither term may make an immediate connection for users.

[snakeling]

Oh, I like "action"; I feel it's more descriptive than "navigation", in that case. What about "profile action menu"?

[7rin.livejournal.com]

I, as a bog-standard, non-techy user, think that navigation 'explains' the function more than action ==to me==. Though I understand that if I click on one of the links, I am both performing an action, and causing an action to be performed, navigation just works better in my head as a description.

[afuna]

Hmm I think it could be confusing (read as "actions to do on the / for the profile" instead of "actions linked to for the user from the profile".

[pauamma]

Semirandom thoughts:
- For the personal journal version of this block, "send message" doesn't fit well with the other 3 (it's a one-shot action, unlike the others, which set up recurring stuff)
- none of these have anything to do with the profile other than the location of the links (one has to do with the user's journal or your reading page, one with your own journal, one with the user's inbox, and one with your own)
- both of the above also apply, with changes, to the community version

Would it make sense to have an arbitrary title attached to that link block and use it everywhere to refer to them? Or are you actually asking what that arbitrary title should be? If you are, how does "misc. links block" sound?

[ephemera]

As came up on the LJ poll, 'profile' anything makes me think the menu *relates to* changes in profile - something more use-focussed like 'user interactions menu', mebe?

[althea_valara]

Agreed--it should not have the word profile in it for that reason. I like "user interactions menu", or some similar language, because that's the actual function of it.