3 ms·

Maybe I'm misreading it but it sounds like your intuitive interpretation is correct? > Always address the user as "you." > > Use "we" to refer to your own per

• layer8 4y ago
  How is that “welcoming and helps the user feel like part of the experience”? It introduces a “you vs. us” dichotomy, with a touch of “we are are a group and you’re just one person”, and more often than not also “we know better what’s good for you”. Since the app is obviously not a “we”, it also suggests that it’s people doing stuff to your device and your data (“we’re setting up some things for you”), which feels intrusive. The user doesn’t want “them” to meddle with his/her stuff, they want a neutral tool that just works and does what it’s told to do.
  • astrobe_ 4y ago
    My feelings exactly. Plus, in some languages "We" can be used in place of "I" by royals (and other people with a high opinion of themselves) - as in the famous "We are not amused" |1]. That's true in my native language too. Well, perhaps we are not the target audience; I suppose MS and others made UX studies before adopting that style. "We, the computer nerds" have maybe a better idea of what's going on under the hood, so those "user illusion" [2] tricks don't work on us. [1] https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/we-are-not-amused.html https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/we-are-not-amused.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_illusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_illusion [3] [3] https://asktog.com/papers/magic.html https://asktog.com/papers/magic.html