“Is it a screen, a display, or an app?” If you’ve ever had your team misinterpret specs due to inconsistent terminology, you’ve experienced the problem of bad naming conventions. In this lesson, I’ll share how inconsistent naming caused confusion, wasted time, and misalignment in my past projects—and how you can avoid making the same mistake.
By now, if you’ve been following Lesson 1 and Lesson 2, you should be:
✅ Writing your specs down.
✅ Keeping all your specs in one single place (your Single Source of Truth).
Now, we move to the next crucial step: defining and maintaining clear, consistent terminology for everything you document.
Prefer watching instead of reading? Watch the full lesson here:
If different people in your company refer to the same thing by different names, miscommunication is inevitable. Over time, this leads to:
1️⃣ Misunderstandings about specs and requirements.
2️⃣ People preparing for the wrong meetings or discussions.
3️⃣ Development teams building the wrong features or workflows.
4️⃣ Delays, wasted time, and frustration.
🚨 Biggest lesson: Define clear names for everything in your project—then use them consistently across specs, conversations, and documentation.
💡 Pro Tip: Create a Terminology Library (or Nomenclature Guide) where all key terms are defined. If you hear someone using an incorrect term, correct them immediately to build a habit of consistency.
When I was working on the infotainment system for the Rimac Nevera, I made a critical mistake: I used multiple names for the same thing.
Here’s how that played out:
🔹 Sometimes I called it a “Screen” (when referring to UI interactions).
🔹 Other times, I called it a “Display” (when referring to the physical hardware).
🔹 In some cases, I called it an “App” (because the GPS Navigation software was an app).
To me, it all made sense—until a major meeting happened, and everyone came in with a completely different understanding of what we were discussing. Some thought we were talking about the mobile app, some thought it was the in-car software, and others thought it was the physical hardware. The whole thing was a disaster, and we had to reschedule.
🔥 Lesson Learned: If I had enforced clear naming conventions from the beginning, I could have avoided massive confusion, frustration, and wasted time.
Want to ensure everyone in your team speaks the same language when working with specs? Follow this simple action plan:
1️⃣ Define a clear name for every key concept, component, or feature.
2️⃣ Document these terms in a shared glossary (Nomenclature Guide).
3️⃣ Enforce the correct usage of terms across all discussions and documents.
📌 Bonus Challenge: Review your current specs and identify inconsistencies in naming. Standardize them and share the updated terminology with your team!
📌 Key takeaway: Having consistent names for everything prevents misalignment and miscommunication. Small differences in terminology can lead to huge misunderstandings.
🎯 Next Lesson: Now that you know how important is to name things correctly and to stick with chose name, lets see what verb you should use to prevent confusion. Watch Lesson 4 →