...

That was easy, wasn't it?

Now you might wonder what the sense of this exercise was. - Well, during this year's CeBIT I visited 3M's booth to check out their new multi touch LCD monitor. Afterwards, I browsed their website to get some more information - I had to browse because I could not remember the name of the monitor to search for it. It turned out that it's called "M2256PW" - sexy, isn't it? Other 3M touch screens are called "M1500SS", "M1700SS", "C1500SS" and "C1700SS".

The first experience we have concerning a product is often its name, e.g., when friends tell us about it.

When I was referring to my visit at 3M's booth, I always had to say that I had a look at "this new touch screen that 3M presented" or simply "the touch screen" - not very catchy. Which is kind of sad because the screen is not bad, and a catchy name would make referring to it in conversations much easier.

Now, I'm not saying that the name of a product is THE factor for success, but it certainly is a factor that should not be neglected. If you spent considerable effort on designing a product or service that shall provide the optimal user experience, you should give it a name that is unique and easy to remember in order to also provide an easy way of talking about it, because talking about a product or service is part of the "extended user experience" - and you want to make it easy for people to spread the word.

To sum it up: good usability makes the memory of interacting with the product stick in a good way. A catchy name makes it easier for the storys user tell about your product to stick, too. 

(Oh, and keep the name short, so people can tweet about it easily.)