Here is an interesting article by IBM’s developerWorks on Web Architecture which looks at the need to articulate messages in interfaces and how it can often be more important than usability. The article is titled, Brevity vs. Usability.
Verbosity and brevity is a much discussed area in interaction design.
What is brevity you ask? Here is a definition by Dictionary.com, and refers to being consise in word use, an example includes, the text in navigation items should be short and descriptive.