Forums » Suggestions & Development Discussion » Stat Widgets: Do they need new names?

There are currently three widgets with the word "stat" in the name: Vital Stats, Flexible Stats, and Classic DnD Stats. I fear that this may be confusing, especially to those just joining the site and trying to figure out what is up with our widgets.

Should we rename one or more of these widgets? "Vital Stats" is probably particularly non-descriptive, although I can't summon up a better word for it. Does anyone else have a more functional thesaurus in their brain?

Another possible candidate is to call "Flexible Stats" something like "Character Sheet," although that too is inaccurate; a person's entire site is potentially their full character sheet.

What do you all think? Should they get new names? Are they fine the way they are?

I don't think it's a big deal because it's something you can figure out with a tiny bit of trial and error. Plus, they have those nice descriptions that pop up on hover. However, if you were going to make a change, you might want to use a different word in Vital Stats because the other two Stats feature more technical numeric data whereas Vital Stats handles info communicated through words. Maybe call Vital Stats "Vital Info" or "Basic Info"?

I think the change of the word 'stats' to 'info' for the Vital Stats widget would be a good one. People tend to think of numerical values when they hear the word 'stats', as previously mentioned.

Flexible and DnD will be fine as they are, I think. They're both the same thing, more or less, except one is loosely based on a tabletop RPG format and the other is easier to manipulate into another, similar system--and they DO use numbers to represent values!

It's not a big deal in the sense of being a show stopper, no, and I see just what you mean. On the other hand, it's sort of a big deal in the sense that one of the main missions of the site is to make building character pages as user friendly as possible. The way I look at it is, every second I force a person to spend figuring out something that could have been clearer, is a second they're not thinking about how awesome their characters are and enjoying sharing them with all the rest of us.

It's true that with limited resources I can only test, build and refine so many things at a time, and priorities do have to be chosen carefully. Happily, changing the name of a widget to be more descriptive is one of those rare things that can be easily done in just a few minutes, so I don't feel like I have an excuse to make people pick up my designing slack via trial and error.

"Basic Info" sounds like a pretty good change. I am curious though, is there anyone out there who thinks that "Vital Stats" is actually a useful title, rather than merely harmless?

"Basic Information" sounds more descriptive, to me, than "Vital Stats". 'Stats' has a pen-and-paper connotation to it, somehow - I almost expect to see the D&D-type numbers listed under there, rather than... well, basic information, hehe.

Vital Stats makes me think of physical appearance more than anything, really. Maybe it's that I'm not a traditional roleplayer, per se- I write my characters the same way I write my stories, and very rarely ever lay out a character sheet, DnD-style. I'm actually a bit surprised to find that there would be any confusion over it, even though it's logical, what with 'stats' being an abbreviation of 'statistics'.

But Basic Info means much the same thing to me, and would probably be less confusing, so I toss my vote in with that.

I also agree that Flexible Stats and DnD Stats are fine as they are.

*bangs gavel* Motion passed! Basic info it is.