3 ms·

it is probably simplest to have words that most people use like male and female and something... The simplest is a text field with: "What prefix would you like

by eksith 13y ago

it is probably simplest to have words that most people use like male and female and something... The simplest is a text field with: "What prefix would you like us to use?" The End. There are no assumptions, no assignment of labels, not one bit of imposing your cultural norms on anyone else. The hardest part of getting over biases is acknowledging that you have them. Learn some sensitivity, please.

IsaacL 13y ago
The simplest is a text field with: "What prefix would you like us to use?" The End. That's indeed a simple approach, and indeed it does not force any pre-existing biases on your users. But it's not necessarily a perfect approach, especially if you want to perform any kind of data analysis on your user base. This doesn't have to be some evil ad tracking system, imagine if you were working on some medical app and wanted to analyse how a particular condition effected different genders. The trouble with your approach is that it's really hard to normalise free text fields. In fact, if you wanted to do anything with users' gender data other than dump it into a database, you'd need to normalise it, and then you're back to using a finite set of categories.
ludicast 13y ago
I'm either being trolled or bullied here. A text field adds time to type out (which can lose customers, alienate handicapped etc.), all to accommodate an exception, rather than a rule. I don't care if you have a slider, dropdown, circle, whatever, but for usability, a gender option should have poles that require 0 or 1 clicks to get to (though a text-field for further elucidation is okay). Continuing down this path, the further step is saying a shoe-size option insults amputees and lymphedema victims and should be a text-field... Edit - Another fact is that the person filling out this form might not be the person described by the form (say for a CRM tool) in which case it matters more to KISS.

by eksith 13y ago

IsaacL 13y ago

The simplest is a text field with: "What prefix would you like us to use?" The End. That's indeed a simple approach, and indeed it does not force any pre-existing biases on your users. But it's not necessarily a perfect approach, especially if you want to perform any kind of data analysis on your user base. This doesn't have to be some evil ad tracking system, imagine if you were working on some medical app and wanted to analyse how a particular condition effected different genders. The trouble with your approach is that it's really hard to normalise free text fields. In fact, if you wanted to do anything with users' gender data other than dump it into a database, you'd need to normalise it, and then you're back to using a finite set of categories.

ludicast 13y ago

I'm either being trolled or bullied here. A text field adds time to type out (which can lose customers, alienate handicapped etc.), all to accommodate an exception, rather than a rule. I don't care if you have a slider, dropdown, circle, whatever, but for usability, a gender option should have poles that require 0 or 1 clicks to get to (though a text-field for further elucidation is okay). Continuing down this path, the further step is saying a shoe-size option insults amputees and lymphedema victims and should be a text-field... Edit - Another fact is that the person filling out this form might not be the person described by the form (say for a CRM tool) in which case it matters more to KISS.