Change name of ‘Software’ to ‘App Center’
We’ve done some user research recently at Endless OS Foundation about how people react to the name ‘Software’ and whether a different name would be more recognisable to people.
Out of a sample size of 8, when asked which name was best, the results were:
- Software: 0
- App Store: 2
- Software Center: 1
- App Center: 5
- None of these are good: 0 (2 people originally selected this then changed their minds)
Unfortunately I can’t share the raw research results as they include videos of the participants’ reactions.
The name ‘App Center’ seems appropriate for what gnome-software does, so I’m proposing renaming ‘Software’ to ‘App Center’. The underlying project name (‘gnome-software’) and app ID, etc., would not change.
While some people thought ‘App Store’ was good, we can’t call gnome-software ‘App Store’ or it’ll get confused with Apple’s App Store.
‘Software’ is confusing because it’s too generic and easily confused with the general term ‘software’. It’s also a bit dated now that we’re moving to the term ‘app’ across the whole desktop.
While gnome-software does handle more than just apps (firmware, fonts, codecs, OS updates), its main focus is apps, and that’s not going to change. The other things have specific UI pathways which lead into them (update notifications, playing a video with an unsupported codec, etc.).