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We closed the domain naming thread (click for details).

Instead, let's start with a killer "elevator pitch!" Joel will be blogging about the elevator pitch approach to naming, but to get you started:

The Elevator Pitch

This isn't as easy as it sounds. Imagine the user who will never read your FAQ and you have two seconds to grab their attention. It should be catchy but descriptive. It should be thoroughly clear but painfully concise. Make every... word... count.

Here are some creative examples:

  • Gawker: Daily Manhattan media news and gossip. Reporting live from the center of the universe.
  • Gizmodo: The gadget guide. So much in love with shiny new toys, it’s unnatural.
  • Autoblog: We obsessively cover the auto industry.
  • DumbLittleMan: So what do we do here? Well, it’s simple. 15 to 20 times per week we provide tips that will save you money, increase your productivity, or simply keep you sane.
  • Needcoffee.com: We are the Internet equivalent of a triple espresso with whipped cream. Mmmm…whipped cream.

Use it as a Tagline

A shorter elevator pitch can be used as a tagline — something you can display in the header at the top of the page. If it doesn't fit, consider shortening it or creating a separate tagline. Here are some great examples:

The Motto (don't forget your logo)

A logo begs for it own little, short tagline — like a motto. Maybe the tagline inspires the logo; Maybe it's the other way around. Mottos make good t-shirt, bumper stickers, and other marketing material. Either way, you'll recognize a good motto when you see it:

  • Just do it.
  • Think Different.
  • The Uncola.
  • Intel inside.
  • Like a rock.
  • The king of beers.

…and perhaps all this leads to a proper name and domain for your site… eventually. So let's start from the basics. Come up with a killer elevator pitch, tagline, and/or motto!

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25 Answers 25

Reset to default
15

... because simple isn't easy.

Inspired by this quote:

Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit of experience and the last effort of genius. - George Sand

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  • 2
    Sounds contradictory as is, perhaps clearer as "...because making things simple isn't easy." ?
    – HostileFork says dont trust SE
    Commented Nov 25, 2010 at 23:27
  • 3
    Now that we're UX.SE I think this is a great pitch for UI, but not for UX. UX is about more than just making things easy to use.
    – Rahul Mod
    Commented Jul 26, 2011 at 15:57
  • @Rahul UX is one step further! :)
    – Camilo Martin
    Commented Oct 12, 2011 at 23:42
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For *UX sake!

6

Happy users get things done.

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Uxbrella: Q&A for designers who care (about the user experience)

Because user experience is an umbrella term that incorporates multiple design practices including visual design, information architecture, interaction design and HCI (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience_design), and addressing all of those in one name is impossible.

Because the whole team should be paying attention to the user experience, so UX design is a holistic approach that covers and addresses all facets of a team/organisation.

Because UX designers are chiefly concerned with protecting users from a terrible user experience by using their available skills.

Because it's a ridiculous, goofy name with a sense of a humor and potential for a bizarre, fun logo and the UX world needs to take itself less seriously and have more fun.

Because it's unique, memorable, accessible, and to the point.

The logo: The umbrella is one of those ones with rainbow colours to represent the multitude of design sensibilities that are a part of UX. An icon could be made using the handle of the umbrella to form the U, followed by an X.

Here's a mockup (obviously the umbrella needs work, I just threw an ellipse over a photo of one):

enter image description here

See the improvement drive thread for a background on why I think we should do this.

Update: Just in case this goes anywhere, I went ahead and registered uxbrella.com and set it to redirect here.

And then this came to me in a dream:

enter image description here

So I guess our next Halloween/Batman movie is covered as well then.

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  • Here's a good post about UX that also uses the umbrella metaphor to describe what we do: UX is not UI
    – Rahul Mod
    Commented Jan 4, 2013 at 15:54
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New attempt:

I think we should try to capture why we do this stuff rather than just describing what we do. It's too hard to summarise user experience design but we can probably get an idea of what it is that makes us UX designers tick. So here's an attempt. Bear in mind that it's a little tongue in cheek; I have no problem visualising ourselves as superheroes on a crusade of justice, saving innocents from the perils of bad usability. That might be a fun angle to take. Otherwise it all sounds so boring, don't you think? (Get on with it!)

Pitch:

User experience is all about how people perceive their interactions with all kinds of products - websites, kitchen utilities, computers, bottles. There's not usually anyone responsible for making those experiences enjoyable (and consequently, the perception positive), but the growing profession of user experience design is trying to change that by championing user happiness. To do that, we need to make technology invisible. Ultimately, if we get it right, this website won't be necessary anymore because there won't be such a thing as a "user experience". There'll just be people going about their lives, getting things done. Imagine a world like that.

Tagline:

  • Helping make technology invisible so people can get on with their lives.

Motto:

  • Climbing the happy user peak
  • Champions of happiness
  • Saving the innocent from the perils of bad usability

Logo

Something like the famous Iwo Jima flagraising photo or the moon landing:

enter image description here enter image description here

Except the flag has "UX" (or a smiley face?) on it and the people raising it aren't soldiers but hip! UX designers.

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  • 1
    Unicode reinterpretation: ☹☹☹ → ☺☺☺
    – peteorpeter
    Commented Sep 20, 2011 at 21:20
  • Love the heroic aspect of this!
    – giraff
    Commented Sep 21, 2011 at 12:41
  • I really like "Champions of happiness"
    – Daniel Newman
    Commented Nov 8, 2011 at 15:59
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You've got humans. We've got answers.

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Elevator Pitch:

A community of people who design for users just like yours.

 
Tagline:

In case your users are humans.

 
Motto:

UI is about U and I.

 

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  • 3
    *U and MEH unless good English does not matter.
    – user371
    Commented Jan 3, 2011 at 19:14
  • 3
    and UX is about U and ?
    – JohnGB Mod
    Commented Sep 20, 2011 at 6:40
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I was thinking something in the line of "UX is to create happy users", or "How to create a happy user". It's a derivation of Peter Drucker's slogan "marketing is to create a customer".

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Tagline:

UX: We make things better

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"Let's make things better"

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Beauty is not enough.

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The Elevator Pitch

User Interface:
How to build that customer relation with your user: the 80% [of the iceberg] that matters

--

A recent consultancy/sales course learned me that the functionality of a product is only the tip of the iceberg why a customer buys something, 80% is about building a good relation. With hardware and software this is expressed through HCI. This activated some neurons again and I got a deja-vu :)

How to = often in top of delicious, stumbleupon etc.. it is one of those sentence starters that attracts users. but also the QA's we find here.

build = not only about building the technology: the software and/or hardware functionality but about that other things needs to be build which is both relationship and HCI/UI

that customer relationship = point to "that" referring to something a business user knows from experience and he may or may not know how to do this in ITC. Customer primes the word users in brain.

with = together

your = the person on the other side behind all that hardware and software

user = now that user is primed: the person on the other side and reference to the title

the 80% = simplistic thinking dividing things in 80% / 20% rules and anyone who follows sales, management, consultancy courses will recognize it

[of the iceberg] = maybe this should be left out, but it sounds recognizable though "only tip of the iceberg" is better but I did not know how to put that in a sentence.

that matters = punchline and matter as opposed to relationship: so creating something non-matter by matter (the ui) , its a smart joke, maybe someone gets it but it completes the circle in the complete sentences: the first one is about non-matter, the second about matter.

80% is about building a relation

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Answers you can use.

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  • Wouldn't that be too general?
    – Bart Gijssens
    Commented Nov 7, 2011 at 14:18
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When in doubt, ask the user.

("Ask the user" could be the definitive answer for at least 50 % of the currently asked questions. That's why we insist on references or at least personal experience, instead of individual preferences.)

(Oh, and should we add: when not in doubt, ask the user as well?)

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User Interface: Where business and user goals intersect in the clearest, simplest, and easiest possible manner.

-2

Tagline:

Not just pretty faces.

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Knowledge in the world


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  • This is too generic, nothing UI-specific.
    – Paŭlo Ebermann
    Commented Jul 11, 2011 at 18:04
  • 2
    @Paŭlo It's a stretch, but I was hoping some people would recognize the allusion to The Design of Everyday Things. kevin-berridge.blogspot.com/2009/11/….
    – Patrick McElhaney Mod
    Commented Jul 11, 2011 at 18:24
  • Thanks for the link. But I fear this still is a too unknown catch-phrase, and most users would not understand it. (I understood it in the general way: "We write on this website to bring knowledge into the world." ... like the overall motto of Stack Exchange: "We want to make the Internet a better place."
    – Paŭlo Ebermann
    Commented Jul 11, 2011 at 18:31
  • Yes, it's a double entendre. My hope was that most people would get the surface meaning, as you did, and some "insiders" would recognize the deeper meaning. It didn't work because nobody got the deeper meaning -- it's just too obscure -- but I think something along these lines could be a good tagline.
    – Patrick McElhaney Mod
    Commented Jul 26, 2011 at 15:15
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Knowledge exchange for expert interaction designers

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  • Why only experts?
    – Rahul
    Commented Oct 11, 2010 at 9:28
  • Because ExpertUI.com was so popular on the domain name discussion.
    – Patrick McElhaney Mod
    Commented Oct 11, 2010 at 12:59
-3

Software needs dials and knobs. We design and optimize them so they don't bother you.

-3

The Inmate's Guide to Rocket Surgery.

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  • ... See what I did there (giggle snort)
    – Jari Keinänen
    Commented Jan 4, 2011 at 15:51
  • 2
    The Inmate's Guide to Everyday Rocket Surgery.
    – Patrick McElhaney Mod
    Commented Jan 5, 2011 at 20:39
-3

Tagline: All radiobuttoned up, and thinking out of the checkbox.

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  • 1
    Would restrict us to Web UI.
    – giraff
    Commented Sep 19, 2011 at 9:52
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For the user knows best.

Is UX = User-Centered design?

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  • Oops, users have no idea what's best. Imagine if you asked people in 1880 if they wanted a car. That's why surveys don't work. Very rarely do users have an appropriate solution. We can observe users using the service and see where they have trouble. That's where we find insight.
    – Tyler Langan
    Commented Nov 25, 2012 at 4:34
-3

UX.SE: Exploring Appropriate Solutions For People

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  • UX does not produce products or services, we produce solutions. We're here in explore mode. We don't know what we will find. Design answers the question "Is this appropriate?" We're centered on the user; not technology for the sake of technology. And we think about the consequences of our products, including recycling after use. Therefor we don't just care about the "User," we care about "People."
    – Tyler Langan
    Commented Nov 25, 2012 at 4:49
-4

A community for UX geeks.

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  • This may be just me, but I do not like this because the phrase “UX geeks” suggests to me that the people here cannot understand what ordinary people think.
    – Tsuyoshi Ito
    Commented Nov 23, 2010 at 13:18
-4

...because not all users grep a man page

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