The complications of watches and language
Posted July 5th, 2010 by David Hamill
You probably speak a different language to that of your customers. It might be a subtle difference but it probably does exist. Your website will have a better chance of serving your customers if you’re aware of it. In this post I’ll discuss how the use of the word complications caused a lot of confusion.
Complicated watches
A recent article in Neuromarketing discussed when complicated is good. The author argued that people sometimes want complexity. I don’t agree with the author but that’s not really important. The problem is that his argument is based upon his own misunderstanding of the word complication when used in this context.
In the article the author explains that Blancpain uses the term complications as a marketing device to illustrate that their watches are very intricate time pieces with lots of little cogs. However in the comments section of the article, somebody points out that complications is actually a term used in horology (the science of measuring time) to mean features.
The author responds, thanking the commenter and says “instead of brilliant marketing Blancpain is merely using jargon unlikely to be understood by non-horologists? Either way, I think it works for them “.
I disagree, it doesn’t work for them and it was never brilliant marketing. I think the word complication is a hindrance to the site’s users. The author’s own misunderstanding of the site has led him to write an article with a redundant argument.
Translating for your customers
Blancpain has used the term complications because this is what it calls the features of a watch. However it would be a mistake to assume the users of the site will understand it. If the author of that article misunderstood it, what chance does a passing web user have?
Baffling people with jargon is never a good idea on a website. Especially when that jargon is used on the site’s navigation menu.
Choosing your words
If Blancpain knew their key users understood such terms (high-end watch retailers for example) then using such a word would be fine. The users would know what complications meant in this context and using such a term would be consistent with the tone of a high-end watchmaker.
However, it’s unlikely that someone who is simply looking for an expensive watch to buy for their husband/wife will understand the term. The use of the word complication will be unhelpful to these people. In fact it’ll probably obstruct many of them from choosing a watch.
So this leaves the owner of the website with a dilemma. Do they use the industry term or a simple term like features?
Like many design decisions, there are winners and losers regardless of which decision you take. Judging by the site content, it looks like the site is aimed at the end customer. But this doesn’t mean that end customers are the primary users. It may just have been a guess on the part of the web team. The primary users could be those with a better understanding of horology speak.
If in doubt, opt for simplicity
If you’ve researched your web users then you’ll know a bit about who’s using your site, what they want and what they know. In which case you’ll know the type of language you should be using. In the absence of this information, you’re basically guessing. In which case I’d recommend choosing simple words over industry speak.
People are normally unlikely to object to simple explanations as long as they aren’t patronising. Horologists won’t care a great deal that you’ve said features instead of complications on a website like this. But the word complications is an obstruction to the watch buying public.
What would you do?
In the absence of reliable research on the users of the Blancpain website, I’d use the term watch features instead of complications . Why not leave a comment explaining the approach you’d take and why?
5 Responses to “The complications of watches and language”
July 6th, 2010 at 8:38 am
I think it’s a little more involved than that. A complication isn’t simply a feature -it’s a feature other than those entailed by the display of hour, minutes and seconds e.g. dates or sunset times. So it does have a very specific meaning that’s not all that easy to translate into everyday language. Enhancements might be the best simple term.
I tend to agree with you that it depends on the product positioning and audience. The bias towards simplicity is also reasonable in principle; however, I also think it can sometimes be possible to have an excessive bias in that direction. One site I worked on was in telecoms and the internal assumption was that users were not interested in technical features; they wanted to know about the everyday business benefits they could gain from the product. In testing, this assumption was proved wrong; the users (all of whom were technical personnel in various roles) ignored the benefit material as marketing fluff and wanted to know answers to detailed technical questions that often weren’t covered on the site. The benefits assumption really related much more to internal aspirations than about the actual usage patterns. That doesn’t obviate your point at all of course (given that the technical features had to be explained in a way that catered to user’s withh varying degrees of expertise in the area), but we should bear in mind not to underplay the user’s domain knowledge.
July 6th, 2010 at 8:39 am
Hi Richard thanks for the clarification. I’d argue that what you’re describing can be adequately labelled features. The display of the time is pretty much a given when you’re buying a watch. So few people would expect to see it listed as a feature. It’s kind of like Apple listing the ability to make phone calls as a feature of the new iPhone. In any case it seems we agree about the central point.
July 6th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
I agree, David — “features” seems like the most appropriate navigation label in this case by far. “Complications” smacks of Mystery Meat Navigation. To the non-horologist site visitor, “complications” might imply that the watches are complicated to make (not surprising); or worse, that they are complicated to use or to buy — an impression that I doubt Blancpain would wish to convey.
July 9th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
I would go with “watch features”.
I would also turn the features into benefits where possible.
Not empty marketese – like “state of the art”, “world-class”, etc.
No – just straightforward explanations of why the features will be useful to the buyer / owner. This applies even in technical B2B sales. The person buying a semi-conductor foundry cannot know everything there is to know about the kit – or he would be making his own. So he needs to understand why the case is made from X or the input hopper is at the back. And why this will help him.
Going back to the watches – I wonder what their conversion rate is and how long an A/B split test would take to decide if “complications” is better than “watch features”.
March 6th, 2011 at 9:11 pm
Hi there,
A short comment to say that in French, we have two different words.
The first one is “compliqué”. It’s sounds very similar to “complicated” and means “uneasy to use”. On the other hand, “complications” is actually a really common term in horlogery world to talk about some kind of watch style. It make me think to the french word “complexe” which means “rich” or “evolved”. This second notion is quite different and actually could be wanted by expert users on some specific web apps in order to improve their professional efficiency.
The only real question is to know if Blancpain website users are familiar to this word
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