Displaying acronyms

Question

I'm working on a website for a student society. The society has been established for a good number of years now, and in its humble beginnings it was known by an acronym. For the purpose of this example, let's call it Just Another Gaming Society, or JAGS for short. However, both on the official logo and most branding, we still go by JAGS, and we've got the obvious problem of newcomers wondering what the blazes JAGS actually stands for.

How could we represent both on the site? I'm approaching building it with both society members and total newcomers in mind, so it'd be good if there was a way to show both our full name and our acronym without causing some issues. It's a long name, and having it in a navbar probably isn't very attractive. I'd be tempted to display the full name briefly and then compact it down - what might be the best way to trigger this?

Answer 1

This is a great question.

As you have noted, the full name in the navbar area is going to be tenuous. You should indeed put the acronym on display for the majority of the user's browsing time.

Make sure that the full title is referred to on the first page that new users visit. If you consider your users to be smart enough to work out an acronym (you do) then you should treat them as though they are smart enough to work out an acronym.

You have already suggested another really good idea. That which you see in many scrolling one-long-page sites already. Showing the full length title when loaded and then shrinking it down for the navbar as the user scrolls the page. These are typically done with multiple images and some slick css, but it can be easily all-type you're low on graphic fixing time.

Whatever you do, make sure that the alt/mouseover text is the full name, even when the acronym is displayed.