Notes on Naming Conventions

The words we use matter. To some people they matter more than the message we are trying to convey. For some, if you speak or write a word that offends them (or anyone else), what you have to say is no longer relevant.

There are many words we avoid using in polite company such as profanity and others we attempt to eliminate completely such as pejorative terms or ethnic slurs.

User -> Person

The word "user" is pervasive in computing:

"A user is a person who utilizes a computer or network service." ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_(computing)#Terminology

Right there in the definition they clarify that a "user" is a "person" ... so why not just call them a person?

The fact that the term "user" is widely used doesn't make it right; it's just the default word many people have become accustomed to.

Mega tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook regularly use the word "user" or "users" to describe the people that use their products and services.

Personalization?

Consider the word personalization. "Personalization consists of tailoring a service or a product to accommodate specific individuals, sometimes tied to groups or segments of individuals." ~ wikipedia.org/wiki/Personalization

The word isn't "userization", because the interface for the "user" is always the same; generic. Whereas the interface that is personalized to an individual person is just for them.

We will be doing a lot of personalization in our App and building tools that allow people to personalize their own experience.

Complete Clarity

We avoid using the word "user" in the auth system and our App because we consider it reductive and distances the people creating the code from the people using the product.

Instead we refer to people using the App as people because it helps us to think of them as real people.

We cannot force anyone else to stop using the word "user". It will still be the default for many companies. Especially the company who treat their "users" as the product.

The Product Facebook Sells is You

"You may think Facebook is the product and you’re the client, but that’s not entirely true. There’s a reason tech companies call us users and not customers. It’s because we’re just people who come and use the interface. The product Facebook sells is you. The advertisers are the customers. That goes for all tech companies that make most of their money from ads." ~ Ben Wolford

DAUs, MAUs

Facebook will continue referring to people as "users" and more specifically "DAUs" (Daily Active Users) and "MAUs" (Monthly Active Users). They don't want to think about the people whose lives they are wasting and in many cases destroying.

We want to do the exact opposite of Facebook with our App; we want to help people save time! So we are using the word "people" and avoiding "users" wherever we can.

Not Just Facebook

Facebook is just the most obvious and egregious example. All the top tech companies harvest your personal data and sell it to advertisers. Apple, Amazon, Disney, Google, Microsoft, NetFlix, Twitter, Uber are all in the advertising business whether you realize it or not. They are all "attention merchants".

"Simply put, the U-words have their origin in a more sanguine, naïve era. As terms, I find them unethical and outdated, and so I have doubts they can usher in the kind of improvements to technology we desperately need." ~ Adam Lefton

Recommended Reading

• Words Matter. Talk About People: Not Customers, Not Consumers, Not Users: jnd.org/words_matter_talk_about_people_not_customers_not_consumers_not_users
• Refuse to Call People ‘Users’: medium.com/s/user-friendly/why-im-done-saying-user-user-experience-and-ux-in-2019-4fdfc6b7de23
• Is Your Life Really Yours? How ‘The Attention Merchants’ Got Inside Our Heads: bigthink.com/high-culture/tim-wu-on-the-attention-merchants-2
• The words you choose within your app are an essential part of its experience: developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/foundations/writing

Note: Apple** while a proponent of carefully selecting words, often refer to the people that buy and use their products and services as "users". This is a legacy of their age as a company - they have been around since 1976 - and their scale; they have more than 2 billion active devices. At that scale it's about numbers and "users" not individual people. There are many great people at Apple who understand that words matter. If the company was started today perhaps they would think twice about the "users" word. But sadly, even Apple are now in the advertising business: wired.co.uk/article/apple-is-an-ad-company-now So they aren't likely to update the word they use to describe us.