Jeff Eusebio: Yeah, I thought of that, too. On the pro side, it would be better than calling them "apps" and it's better than most of the other alternatives.

But on the con side, there's a practical con and a philosophical or general con. The practical con is, SmartSuite doesn't present links to it's different "apps" (tables) AS TABS. It presents them (rather nicely) as sort of page titles. And I like that. I find Airtable's tabs kind of ugly. The more general con is that "tab" too already has a fairly precise meaning in UI parlance, a meaning understood even by non-technical users. A tab is much more like a 'view' than it is like a data table.

Even people who don't know much about databases know what a "table" is. It's what they use in Word (or Google Docs) when they need to present a little bit of structured data. It's got the same meaning in apps like Coda and Notion, or in every markup editor. A table is a data-presentation device that is organized by rows and columns. Anybody who doesn't know that already really needs — for their own benefit — to learn it, because it's how the rest of the world talks about this stuff.

ONE QUESTION THOUGH: You said "They ARE more than tables, so we shouldn't call them tables". In what way are SmartSuite's "apps" more than normal data tables (say, in Airtable)?

William Porter: "It presents them (rather nicely) as sort of page titles. And I like that." ← I like that too, and building off that, "Page" would work better than "Tab". Certainly my end users would understand instructions such as "Open the SmartSuite app, select the CRM solution, and then click the Opportunities page". It would be light years better than saying "Open the CRM solution and select Opportunities app". That would just sow confusion.

Regarding "They ARE more than tables", agreed the underlying data is a table, or more accurately a bunch of tables relationally related through links and subitems etc, but to an end user, a calendar doesn't look like a table. Nor does a Kanban. Nor a Mindmap when they add that 😉.

Jeff Eusebio: Excellent points. You have me thinking harder now.

You: «[I]t would be light years better than saying "Open the CRM solution and select Opportunities app".»

Yes, indeed. Very well put. That's the problem with "apps" in a nutshell.

«Regarding "They ARE more than tables", agreed the underlying data is a table, or more accurately a bunch of tables relationally related through links and subitems etc, but to an end user, a calendar doesn't look like a table. Nor does a Kanban. Nor a Mindmap when they add that 😉.»

Well the relational stuff isn't a way in which SmartSuite apps are "more than tables". That's just relational databases 101. What gets related are tables, that is, the structured data sets.

But your other point – that kanbans, calendars, etc., don't LOOK LIKE TABLES — that's an interesting point.

My first response though is that this isn't dispositive. I think most users GET this without much effort. Software windows don't look like, um, glass windows. Links don't look like links (sausage or otherwise). My late mother (who was even more literal minded than I) was learning computers in the late '90s on one of those Bondi-blue iMacs. (Ugh!!) She never understood why the trash can was on her desktop. She thought it should be UNDER the desk. That objection (like yours) had never occurred to me.

In database parlance, the "table" is the back-end collection of structured data. Everything else is a view. Airtable and SmartSuite's use of grids as default views is a brilliant idea in many ways, but perhaps a little confusing in other ways. A grid is just a way of presenting the underlying data. And when you click on the "Customers" link/button/tab/whatever to switch to view that data, you understand (or you learn quickly) that you're switching to a different data set.

I'm not dead set against neologisms. But if everybody else in the English-speaking world calls this a "table", calling it something different is a big risk. Your new term needs to be so much better than what the rest of the world is using that the rest of the world goes "Why didn't we think of that?" and they convert to your new term. Otherwise after enduring a year of complaints, you're going to do what Airtable did when it tried to call extensions "apps": You're going to quietly change your term back to what it should have been all along.

:-)

William Porter: Brilliant. Agreed, especially with if everybody else in the world something X, calling it something different is a big risk.

To SmartSuite: the problem with the word "Apps" isn't that it couldn't work for this purpose, the problem is that it already means something completely different to most people.

Back to William: I do agree that Airtable has used the term "table" successfully. Whether we call them tables, links, tabs, boards, buttons, or menu options... any would be better than apps.

Suggest SmartSuite use their own tool and ask all current users to cast a vote for their favorite replacement term.

Jeff Eusebio: A table / grid is a view, a way to display data, like the other views you mentioned.

We can agree on a name for the group / collection of records presented e.g. as a table / list.

A page?

A set of records?

It's useful to consult with linguists about how every such term is going to be rendered in the other languages in which SmartSuite are going to communicate.

GitHub Julian Dumitrascu: I heard in a recent webinar (maybe the one with Noloco) that they've already decided that the term "app" is confusing, not aligned with rest of the no code world, and they will be rolling out a change. I think to "table", but am not sure, so at this point am happy to wait for the official announcement.