I love a Cinderella story. There’s something about a narrative that goes from struggle to strategic that really makes my heart sing. A blank page can be inspiring in the right context, but it can also be intimidating. I understand the appeal of a complete rebuild of a system, but I think refreshing an experience can be a lot more satisfying — for an organization and for users too.

When a name becomes infected.

Most organizations have had a digital-system-transition moment. When I worked at Emerson College, we had an old system that we were transitioning away from. This system helped students to run and engage with extra-curricular and co-curricular activities. It was still functional, but the team at the pointy end of this work had found something more relevant and better able to address user needs. When the organization had first purchased this platform, we’d rebranded it to reflect the college and its identity. Unfortunately, over the years, the rebranded name of the platform had become so synonymous with the issues that it was riddled with that it had also become a byword for ineffective and inefficient communication… definitely not ideal.

That’s a big legacy. Names are important; there have been a lot of studies about naming conventions from the Bouba/Kiki effect on brand names to repetition in heavy metal band names. But when it came time to talk about how to fold this new platform into our brand, I advocated for keeping the old name. Because if we can take a thing that used to work but badly, and then not just make it prettier, but make it more effective and make it better for the user, then that to me is a really great Cinderella story.

Feelings can be facts.

Sentiment is a big part of this. We can’t take away the feelings of users about any particular platform that they’re using, and I don’t think we should try to. But it is our job as communications and marketing professionals to tap into those feelings, to try and understand them, and to account for them as much as possible. Audiences can’t always give you reasons as to why they feel a certain way about names, but it’s worth paying attention to any data that you can gather on the topic.

There’s also a slightly tricky thing at work here too; you get to add some surprise, and hopefully a bit of delight to a system that people are a bit down on. Fun, right? Otherwise, they’re like, “oh a new system, okay, well I guess the old one didn’t work so…” When really, getting a reticent user to come to a product, dragging their feet and all frowny in the mouth regions, and then… it functions fast and well, is easy to pick up and play, and does what it’s supposed to do… that’s a good story. Heck, that’s a good feeling. Cinderella beats a blank page every day.