Why doesn't text spell out OTP when it asks "autodelete OTPs after 24 hours?"

StephenGeis1949

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Aug 18, 2022
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I didn't recognize the OTP acronym for One Time Password. I found the answer with a Google search and am happy that the autodelete feature exists, but don't understand why Google doesn't spell out a fairly obscure term.
 
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Welcome to Android Central! It's actually a fairly well-established acronym these days, kind of like RCS. True, it may not be universally known, but you did what the average user should do -- do a quick web search for the term.
 
I didn't recognize the OTP acronym for One Time Password. I found the answer with a Google search and am happy that the autodelete feature exists, but don't understand why Google doesn't spell out a fairly obscure term.
I agree completely, it's just lazy and sloppy. I'm a software engineer with decades of experience and I had no idea what it meant when it popped up this morning, which lead me here. I've used Android phones for over a decade and never got that message until today.

Forcing your users to search for an acronym just to respond to a dialog is bad User Experience (UX).
 
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Welcome to Android Central! I guess the question is when do common terms become common (e.g., no one needs to define what LTE is any more). You can always send feedback to Google about this from within the system settings or the Google Messages app's settings.
 
Welcome to Android Central! I guess the question is when do common terms become common (e.g., no one needs to define what LTE is any more). You can always send feedback to Google about this from within the system settings or the Google Messages app's settings.

Yeah, I had no idea what LTE stood for. The idea being that google devs shouldn't be assuming knowledge. Thanks, I will send them feedback.
 
We should all start saying embedded Service Interface module, Short Messaging Service/Multimedia Messaging Service and Fifth Generation Global System for Mobile communication to avoid confusion.

Or possibly to increase it lol
 
We should all start saying embedded Service Interface module, Short Messaging Service/Multimedia Messaging Service and Fifth Generation Global System for Mobile communication to avoid confusion.

Or possibly to increase it lol
Except that this isn't about general communication, it's about designing user interfaces. UX design best practices say that acronyms should be avoided.
 
Except that this isn't about general communication, it's about designing user interfaces. UX design best practices say that acronyms should be avoided.
Whats UX?

laugh out loud.

All the things I mentioned appear in the mobile cellphone telephones user interface..
 
Whats UX?

laugh out loud.

All the things I mentioned appear in the mobile cellphone telephones user interface..
In case you didn't notice, this is a forum, not the UI of a mobile phone. Google developers, just like most professional devs, are fully aware that they shouldn't be using acronyms in the UI.
 
This still goes back to the question of when does a common acronym become common? Regardless, I think searching the web has become popular enough that it's second nature for most people to just Google something they're not familiar with.

As a guy who's rapidly becoming older and out of touch, I find I have to Google more and more colloquial acronyms, like "IIRC" 😆
 
This still goes back to the question of when does a common acronym become common? Regardless, I think searching the web has become popular enough that it's second nature for most people to just Google something they're not familiar with.

As a guy who's rapidly becoming older and out of touch, I find I have to Google more and more colloquial acronyms, like "IIRC"
Yeah, that was the point I was trying to make... where do we draw the line? I'll go through it again and make it a bit more obvious

When I boot my phone without a SIM, should it say "Have an embedded Service Interface Module?" instead of "have an eSIM?"?

When I'm texting my friend who uses an old 3410 (yes, really) should the message box say "Texting using Short Messaging Service/Multimedia Messaging Service" instead of "Texting using SMS/MMS"?

When I'm near a tower with the much over hyped recent mobile network standard available, should it say in tiny text next to my signal strength indicator "Fifth Generation Global System for Mobile communication" instead of "5G"?

Does having the full terminology here actually help the user experience?
 
Yeah, that was the point I was trying to make... where do we draw the line? I'll go through it again and make it a bit more obvious

When I boot my phone without a SIM, should it say "Have an embedded Service Interface Module?" instead of "have an eSIM?"?

When I'm texting my friend who uses an old 3410 (yes, really) should the message box say "Texting using Short Messaging Service/Multimedia Messaging Service" instead of "Texting using SMS/MMS"?

When I'm near a tower with the much over hyped recent mobile network standard available, should it say in tiny text next to my signal strength indicator "Fifth Generation Global System for Mobile communication" instead of "5G"?

Does having the full terminology here actually help the user experience?
Good point
 
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In all those examples (SIM, SMS, 5G, RCS, LTE), the long version is a technical phrase that has no inherent meaning. As such, the acronyms are just as descriptive as the long versions. For example, in 5G, we're basically being told that it is newer than 4G or 3G. We don't actually know the difference between 5G and 4G other than higher numbers are newer. And we don't really need to know anything more than that. So it made sense to make short forms of these. It's easier to learn and use the short form than the long form, with no real loss of meaning.

Note that I said SIM rather than eSIM. I'm fairly certain that most people who see eSIM ignore the e and just read the SIM. Same thing with the MMS in SMS/MMS. But that's a side issue.

Similarly, what does User Experience mean? People in the field know that it means understanding how the user interface (UI) fits into the user's workflow (or overall eXperience). But people outside the field won't find User Experience any clearer than UX. Both require about the same knowledge to understand. UI falls on the other side. User Interface is clearer, so UI should only be used without explanation when it's reasonable to assume that the reader already knows what it means. I.e. it should not have been used without explanation in this thread.

By contrast, One-Time Password is not a technical term and is understandable. Rendering it as OTP makes it less understandable. And more ambiguous. On The Phone is an another long form and makes just as much sense. One True Pairing also makes sense until you find out what it's actually supposed to mean.

Because One-Time Password is not a technical term, OTP will never become superior to it. It will always be at least as clear, if not clearer, to write it out. And of course, one can always write One-Time Password (OTP) or OTP (One-Time Password) and get the benefits of both.

The message in the phone should write out One-Time Password. And for a better user experience, it would make sense to only show that message on the screen that shows an actual One-Time Password. Currently it shows on the main text screen which doesn't provide sufficient context to understand it, even for someone like me who generates the stupid things programmatically. I.e. I would actually be considered in that field (broadly) and I still didn't automatically recognize that acronym. Perhaps if I were more mobile-focused (rather than PC-focused), but I'm not.

There's also a bit of a question about commonality. However, I find it very unlikely that OTP will ever become as common as, say, NASA. NASA's long form is slightly clearer (because it indicates that S is for Space), but it is widely enough known that that isn't really necessary. NASA is the space agency. What the NAA represent is not important (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). FBI and CIA too. Or even GM and GE. But the typical interaction with an OTP does not require the acronym. They don't say, "Enter the OTP." They say, "Enter the code we texted to your phone." So most people will never become familiar enough with the acronym to translate it to its actual meaning.

So if you're asking where the line is, I would say between OTP and SIM or between UI and UX. Outside technical contexts, OTP and UI should be written out. And OTP is farther from the line than UI, which at least has some hope of becoming common enough to be recognizable outside technical contexts (like NASA is).
 
In all those examples (SIM, SMS, 5G, RCS, LTE), the long version is a technical phrase that has no inherent meaning. As such, the acronyms are just as descriptive as the long versions. For example, in 5G, we're basically being told that it is newer than 4G or 3G. We don't actually know the difference between 5G and 4G other than higher numbers are newer. And we don't really need to know anything more than that. So it made sense to make short forms of these. It's easier to learn and use the short form than the long form, with no real loss of meaning.

Note that I said SIM rather than eSIM. I'm fairly certain that most people who see eSIM ignore the e and just read the SIM. Same thing with the MMS in SMS/MMS. But that's a side issue.

Similarly, what does User Experience mean? People in the field know that it means understanding how the user interface (UI) fits into the user's workflow (or overall eXperience). But people outside the field won't find User Experience any clearer than UX. Both require about the same knowledge to understand. UI falls on the other side. User Interface is clearer, so UI should only be used without explanation when it's reasonable to assume that the reader already knows what it means. I.e. it should not have been used without explanation in this thread.

By contrast, One-Time Password is not a technical term and is understandable. Rendering it as OTP makes it less understandable. And more ambiguous. On The Phone is an another long form and makes just as much sense. One True Pairing also makes sense until you find out what it's actually supposed to mean.

Because One-Time Password is not a technical term, OTP will never become superior to it. It will always be at least as clear, if not clearer, to write it out. And of course, one can always write One-Time Password (OTP) or OTP (One-Time Password) and get the benefits of both.

The message in the phone should write out One-Time Password. And for a better user experience, it would make sense to only show that message on the screen that shows an actual One-Time Password. Currently it shows on the main text screen which doesn't provide sufficient context to understand it, even for someone like me who generates the stupid things programmatically. I.e. I would actually be considered in that field (broadly) and I still didn't automatically recognize that acronym. Perhaps if I were more mobile-focused (rather than PC-focused), but I'm not.

There's also a bit of a question about commonality. However, I find it very unlikely that OTP will ever become as common as, say, NASA. NASA's long form is slightly clearer (because it indicates that S is for Space), but it is widely enough known that that isn't really necessary. NASA is the space agency. What the NAA represent is not important (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). FBI and CIA too. Or even GM and GE. But the typical interaction with an OTP does not require the acronym. They don't say, "Enter the OTP." They say, "Enter the code we texted to your phone." So most people will never become familiar enough with the acronym to translate it to its actual meaning.

So if you're asking where the line is, I would say between OTP and SIM or between UI and UX. Outside technical contexts, OTP and UI should be written out. And OTP is farther from the line than UI, which at least has some hope of becoming common enough to be recognizable outside technical contexts (like NASA is).

TLDR

While everyone is being super pedantic, most of the things we are discussing in here are not acronyms, they are initialisations. In order to qualify as an acronym the individual letters have to be pronouncable as a word.
 
I didn't recognize the OTP acronym for One Time Password. I found the answer with a Google search and am happy that the autodelete feature exists, but don't understand why Google doesn't spell out a fairly obscure term.
Just came to ask that exact question! :giggle:
 
Just came to ask that exact question! :giggle:
Welcome. :)

It is perhaps surprising that a huge company such as Google may make mistakes, considering how many people are employed to consider every aspect great and small of their operation, but so it may have been.

Enjoy the forums. :)