---
title: Navigation Menu Naming — 'Success Stories' and 'Events and Programs'
type: article
created: '2025-12-02'
updated: '2025-12-02'
source_docs:
- raw/2025-12-02-vcedc-website-meeting-105716500.md
tags:
- website
- navigation
- content-strategy
- client-vcedc
layer: 2
client_source: null
industry_context: null
transferable: true
---

# Navigation Menu Naming — 'Success Stories' and 'Events and Programs'

## Overview

During the VCEDC pre-launch review meeting (Dec 2, 2025), two navigation menu items were renamed to improve clarity and correctness ahead of the December 15 launch. The changes are minor but reflect a broader principle: nav labels should be immediately legible to a general audience, not just to the organization's internal vocabulary.

## The Changes

### 'Business Success' → 'Success Stories'

The original label **"Business Success"** was flagged as ambiguous — it wasn't immediately clear to a first-time visitor what the section contained. The team considered several alternatives:

- *Business Successes* — grammatically awkward as a plural
- *Business Success Stories* — accurate but long
- *Testimonials* — too generic
- **Success Stories** — chosen as the clearest, most layman-friendly option

The item remains a **dropdown** with sub-pages including Spotlight and Business of the Year. The top-level label "Success Stories" works as an umbrella without conflicting with the sub-page titles.

> "In layman's terms, that's what I would say — I want to see who they've helped." — Kathy Schmitz

### 'Events and Program' → 'Events and Programs'

A straightforward pluralization fix. The singular "Program" was a typo/oversight; the corrected label is **"Events and Programs"**.

## Decision Rationale

- Nav labels should describe what a visitor will *find*, not what the organization calls it internally
- Shorter is better, but not at the cost of clarity
- Labels can be updated post-launch without significant effort, so the team agreed to ship with "Success Stories" and revisit if needed

## Implementation Notes

- Both changes were assigned to the developer (Lucas) as part of the pre-launch change batch
- The dropdown structure under "Success Stories" was preserved as-is
- These are cosmetic/copy changes only — no URL or page structure changes required

## Related

- [[clients/vcedc/index]]
- [[meetings/2025-12-02-vcedc-pre-launch-review]]
- [[knowledge/website/vcedc-events-page-placeholder-copy]]