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Facebook No Longer Likes the Word 'Users'

5 points by r721 12y ago

timboslice 12y ago
>"Daily average people" instead of "daily average users" Seems like a hollow argument more about semantics to me. Yeah yeah, we get it. Your users are people too. To the local corner store, I’m a customer; to Southwest, a passenger. Each institution may refer to their customers in a different manner, but it does nothing to change the fact that they are a customer/consumer. >As somebody once said, it’s kind of arrogant to think that the only reason that people exist is to use what you built. They actually have lives, like, outside of the experience they have using your product. So the first step to designing in a human-centered way is to recognize that they’re humans. Just because I am a "user" does not mean I only use your product
applecore 12y ago
> It's kind of arrogant to think that the only reason that people exist is to use what you've built. This is an interesting approach to design: emphasizing the relationship between your product (the part) and the user (as a whole). However, it's a bit misguided to read into the word "user" like this and I'm not sure the solution is as simple as substituting "person" and "people" for it. It's often presumptuous—and rather telling—when a product attempts to be relevant or meaningful outside of its own context.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
crpatino 12y ago
I think the idiomatic form of "user" is perfectly clear within industry. In particular, a "user" is a stakeholder that makes use of the product but not necessarily pay for it... otherwise, he would have been called a "client" or "customer". Originally, this distinction was used in corporate software markets to make a distinction between the entity who made the purchase and the chumps who would end up interacting with the product on a day to day basis (thus enjoying/enduring the consequences of said purchase). On contrast, by redefining "users" as "people" we stripe the term of one of its fundamental qualities. You might notice that "people" is now redefined as stakeholders that get somehow affected by - but not necessarily make (direct) use of - your product. Am I the only one who finds this blurring of concepts disturbingly Orwellian???

5 points by r721 12y ago

>"Daily average people" instead of "daily average users" Seems like a hollow argument more about semantics to me. Yeah yeah, we get it. Your users are people too. To the local corner store, I’m a customer; to Southwest, a passenger. Each institution may refer to their customers in a different manner, but it does nothing to change the fact that they are a customer/consumer. >As somebody once said, it’s kind of arrogant to think that the only reason that people exist is to use what you built. They actually have lives, like, outside of the experience they have using your product. So the first step to designing in a human-centered way is to recognize that they’re humans. Just because I am a "user" does not mean I only use your product

applecore 12y ago

> It's kind of arrogant to think that the only reason that people exist is to use what you've built. This is an interesting approach to design: emphasizing the relationship between your product (the part) and the user (as a whole). However, it's a bit misguided to read into the word "user" like this and I'm not sure the solution is as simple as substituting "person" and "people" for it. It's often presumptuous—and rather telling—when a product attempts to be relevant or meaningful outside of its own context.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

crpatino 12y ago

I think the idiomatic form of "user" is perfectly clear within industry. In particular, a "user" is a stakeholder that makes use of the product but not necessarily pay for it... otherwise, he would have been called a "client" or "customer". Originally, this distinction was used in corporate software markets to make a distinction between the entity who made the purchase and the chumps who would end up interacting with the product on a day to day basis (thus enjoying/enduring the consequences of said purchase). On contrast, by redefining "users" as "people" we stripe the term of one of its fundamental qualities. You might notice that "people" is now redefined as stakeholders that get somehow affected by - but not necessarily make (direct) use of - your product. Am I the only one who finds this blurring of concepts disturbingly Orwellian???