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Preferred terms
The word to use for each interface action, and where the words for domain concepts live.
These guidelines apply to the words for actions and navigation in Nebula components and the products built with them. One concept gets one word, everywhere. If your user meets 'Remove' on one screen and 'Delete' on the next, they have to work out whether the two do the same thing.
Actions
| What the control does | Word |
|---|---|
| Sends data onward for someone else to act on | Submit |
| Asks your user to acknowledge a consequence before it happens | Confirm |
| Keeps a change to something that already exists | Save |
| Puts something into a collection that already exists | Add |
| Makes something that didn't exist before | Create |
| Opens something so it can be changed | Edit |
| Takes something out of a list, where it still exists elsewhere | Remove |
| Destroys something, where nothing else holds it | Delete |
| Queries a set of records | Search |
Remove and Delete are the pair most often swapped, and both are right somewhere. What separates them is what happens to the thing, not how final it sounds: if your user can still get it back from elsewhere, it was removed.
Where two words would both do, we've picked one so the products agree with each other. Use Search rather than Find or Lookup, and Edit rather than Change or Amend. The alternatives aren't wrong, they're just not the ones we use.
Where an action destroys something, say what it destroys rather than leaving the verb to carry it. For how much friction that needs, see Destructive actions.
Cancelling and closing
| What the control does | Word |
|---|---|
| Abandons a task, where progress will be lost | Cancel |
| Dismisses a panel or modal that changed nothing | Close |
Someone pressing Cancel expects to lose their work. Someone pressing Close doesn't, so swapping the two tells them the wrong thing about what they're about to lose. Where Cancel would be ambiguous because the task is named, name it on both buttons: 'Keep payment' alongside 'Delete payment' tells your user what each one leaves them with.
Moving through a task
| What the control does | Word |
|---|---|
| Moves forward through a multi-step task | Next |
| Moves back through a multi-step task | Back |
Don't number these labels. The step position belongs to Progress Stepper, and a number in the button will go stale the moment a step is added.
Back is for a task, and Previous is for a sequence that isn't one, which is why Datepicker Field announces its calendar controls as 'Previous month' and 'Next month'. Someone stepping back through a form is undoing their own progress; someone paging through a calendar isn't.
Terms Nebula already sets
Some wording ships with the components. Where it's a prop you can override it, and where it's an accessible name you can't.
These are props. Use the default unless you have a reason not to, so the same control reads the same way in every product.
| Component | Prop | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Notification | title on the error summary | 'There is a problem' |
| Overflow Menu | label | 'More actions' |
| Progress Stepper | finalStepLabel | 'Finish' |
| Datepicker Field | clearLabel | 'Clear' |
These are fixed. Assistive technology reads them and nothing shows them, so you won't find them in a screenshot and can't change them from your product.
| Component | Announced as |
|---|---|
| Modal, Notification | 'Dismiss', for the close control |
| Page | 'Back' |
| CTA Link, Text Link, Overflow Menu | ' (opens in new window)' |
| File Field | 'Selected files' |
| Combobox Field | 'Options' |
| Datepicker Field | 'Previous month', 'Next month', 'Previous year', 'Next year' |
| Tooltip | 'Info' |
Where one of these is wrong for your product it's usually wrong everywhere, so raise it against the component rather than working around it. 'Info' is the one to know about: an icon-only control should be announced by what it does, not by what it is.
Domain terms
The words for things in the energy business, such as MPAN, Direct Debit, meter read and tariff, aren't set here. Local teams own them, because which word is right depends on the market and sometimes on regulation.
What still applies is the rule above. Pick one word per concept and use it everywhere, and record which of those words are proper nouns that keep their capitals, as Direct Debit does.