Services are verbs combined with nouns

Information architecture normally focuses on the objects that need to be represented in a system. Some human-centred practitioners focus instead on the tasks users need to do. These approaches are sometimes framed in opposition. But combining these techniques can make services and systems easier to use as well as more efficient to manage.

Information should normally be organised by noun

When devising a content model or an information architecture, we establish the nouns — or objects, or things — people are looking for, and the relationships between those objects. This informs the development of usable navigation systems.

If this idea is new to you, see this description of the technique, why it works, and examples of it in action:

The object of information architecture

Other human-centred approaches sometimes focus on the verbs

A big challenge to this object-oriented approach comes from some people working with human-centred approaches. Rightly, human-centred approaches focus on the tasks people need or want to do.

Any user behaviour involves doing something — an action of some sort. This leads some human-centred practitioners to focus on what people are trying to do, rather than the thing they are trying to do it to. In other words, they think in terms of verbs, not nouns. Over time, a perception has developed that human-centred services should therefore avoid using nouns.

Nouns were declared to be bad

Most notably, Lou Downe, the pioneering service designer who has done much to promote human-centred thinking as part of the UK Government Digital Service and beyond, wrote this influential blog post ten years ago:

Good services are verbs, bad services are nouns — Lou Downe — Design in government

Lou Downe went as far as to provide guidance on “turning nouns into verbs”. They gave an example of a usability testing programme that led a Home Office service to change its name from “Immigration Health Surcharge” to “Check if you need to pay towards your health care in the UK”.

But the problem was jargon, not nouns

The catchy mantra, “Good services are verbs, bad services are nouns,” took hold. Yet the example Lou Downe gave of an improved service name contained as many nouns (health, care, UK) as verbs (check, need, pay).

The reason the original name didn’t work was not because it was a noun. It is because it was a jargon phrase.

The fact that the newer name was better understood by users is evidence of the need to use plain language. It is not evidence of the need to avoid nouns.

A service has both verbs and nouns

In 2020, Lou Downe began their brilliant book Good Services with a simple definition of service:

“A service is something that helps someone to do something.”

To do is a verb. Something is a noun.

To do something involves a verb combined with a noun.

So it is not that we need to avoid using nouns. In fact, we really need to know what those nouns are. Otherwise we don’t know what the user is trying to take action on.

Take the example Applying for probate.

No one wants to apply for probate. They just want probate.

In other words, users need the thing — the noun. The verb is the action they must take to get that thing.

All tasks have both verbs and nouns

All tasks can be thought of as a verb combined with a noun.

Here are some examples from the Gov.UK and mygov.scot homepages:

• Set up an account
• Sign in to your account
• Get access to your eVisa
• Check your state pension forecast
• Check your National Insurance record
• Find a job
• Upload your document
• Apply for a Blue Badge

The power of combining verbs with nouns

From an information architecture standpoint, there is immense power in thinking about our services in this format. It shows that verb-focused thinking and object-oriented thinking are not in opposition. In fact, by combining the approaches, we can enable more standardisation and reusability in our patterns.

In Sophia Prater’s orca method (part of object-oriented user experience or OOUX), these verbs are known as calls to action. This is not strictly meant in the sense of a marketing call to action. But they are described as “the affordances of your objects”.

The design of a door handle should tell you whether it’s a pull or push door. In the same way, orca’s calls to action tell you what you can do to an object in an interactive system.

On a social media service, “a post calls a user to like it, comment on it, bookmark it, and share it.”

In OOUX and the orca method, calls to action — the verbs — are combined with objects — the nouns.

Service patterns and information patterns have huge potential together

My colleagues within the Scottish Government, and those in other organisations, are doing a lot of interesting work around service patterns. Much of this is looking at the verbs people might encounter through the lifecycle of a service. For example, you might first learn about a service before going on to apply for it. Later on you may check it and perhaps give feedback about it.

The idea is that by analysing these verbs, we can establish common patterns for them. This in turn would make it easier to create new services, and have services sharing common infrastructure and processes.

It is incredibly similar to the aims of information architecture, except for its focus on verbs rather than nouns.

This is how we can find efficiencies and improve user experience

At the moment most services, and the information for them, are created bespoke. But by codifying our verbs as service patterns and nouns as information models, we have the potential to unleash great efficiencies.

In my head this is a bit like a flip clock. There are 1,440 different hour–minute combinations every day. But a flip clock manufacturer only has to make 24 hour flaps and 60 minute flaps to achieve all the necessary combinations.

In the same way, if we can identify the most important reusable service patterns and objects, we can achieve many of the necessary combinations for services.

Information architects at Defra are making strides in this direction as well. They are challenging the mantra that bad services are nouns, and are running experiments with the object-oriented approach.

Not everything can or should be standardised. But this approach has the potential to reduce unnecessary duplicated work, as well as making our services easier to find and use.