And communication contains technical terminology. Here is a simple way of showing this.

A UX designer who gets not only the user focus, but who also knows the critical role of language is my former colleague, Windows UX designer and now principal of UX Design Edge, Everett McKay. I borrowed the title of this posting from his presentation which later became a book: UI is Communication.

Obviously not everything on the user interface is language or terminology-related. And with the increased use of touch, voice or motion interaction, we might see an even clearer focus of certain types of software on these other ways of communication.

But a simple screen shot without words can demonstrate that certain types of user interfaces rely heavily, if not exclusively, on language as the means of communication between the developer of the product and the user. If the developer does not communicate the intent of the form, screen, etc. well, the user will struggle.

Here is a form without words. Get it? No? No problem: I designed it in Visual Studio myself, and I am a level 0 designer on Everett’s scale. So, there is nothing to get other than terminology on the form matters.