While designing the navigation for a new client, I sat down to chart out the terminology used for each page and its appropriate category. The first words any designer would use are “Home”, “Products”, “Contact” – they’re common on any website.

However after mapping the entire user experience and seeing that this client’s site wasn’t going to be cookie cutter, I realized that the descriptive words used in the navigation are not the easiest to understand while navigating the site. This client mainly operates in the econferencing sector, and words like “audio” and “video” were going to immediately confuse the visitor.

What’s the solution? Functional phrasing! Design navigation titles that describe the functionality of the page (or product). “Video” was either replaced or subtitled by “Studio Conferencing”, allowing the user to better understand the product. This phrasing also helped to simplify the navigation, cutting out “disambiguity” pages that contain a giant list of products.