Naming Conventions - What to call the People who Use the App?

[nelsonic]

This may appear to be a minutiae detail, please ignore if you aren't interested in naming.

" The words we use make a huge difference " ~ Don Norman

"One of the horrible words we use is 'users'.
I am on a crusade to get rid of the word 'users'.
I would prefer to call them 'people'."
Don Norman on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_(computing)#Terminology

The easiest way of referring to the people who use an application is as "users" ...
I've never been a fan of calling people "users"...
( I associate the word "users" with people who take narcotics ... )

I would prefer to refer to the (enlightened) people who use our app as a person (singular/record) and people (plural/collection) ... but if anyone else has a suggestion for a better collective noun

Note: I love the word "Team" but think we should reserve it to refer to the people who are building the product... what do you think?

Further reading: a better word: http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/11401/better-term-for-user
Bonus Level: (Don Norman's) Ted Talk on Design & Emotion: http://www.ted.com/talks/don_norman_on_design_and_emotion

Todo

• Capture our decision to use the word people to describe the human beings using our App(s) so that we never have to have the "Users" discussion again.
  • Add a "Who?" section to the README.md of this repo and add a brief paragraph summarising exactly why we avoid the term "User" or "Users". The term is obsolete and companies/apps that continue using it are showing their ignorance of this fact.

[nelsonic]

I think this deserves an entry in the Manifesto: #19

[nelsonic]

I've used the word person in the models.

• https://github.com/ideaq/time/blob/e5a2f885551f5eb846614550bad7018c7afed02a/models/timer.js#L4
• https://github.com/ideaq/time/blob/e5a2f885551f5eb846614550bad7018c7afed02a/models/person.js#L4

If anyone feels strongly about another word, please re-open.

[iteles]

Sorry, I thought I'd answered this one! Totally agree on people. We might come up with something better when we actually have a name for the product #28

[nelsonic]

We choose to name the schema people because we want to instil the mindset of thinking about the people using our app(s) as people who we empathise with not "MAUs", a de-humanised commodity to optimised, the way many other apps/services do.

We acknowledge that this is not the most common name for a table containing personal details,
but we want to make it the default way (at least in the apps we build). We prefer to refer to the humans using our app(s) as "people" rather than "users"; hopefully this will not cause an "confusion" ... or if it does it will act as a "filter" for the people who are easily confused.
Anyone who prefers to call people "users" is welcome to fork our Auth module/app and rename to their heart's content, that's the beauty of Open Source, everyone is free to make up their own mind!

[nelsonic]

This is a superb post on why the term "Users" and other "U-words" are out-dated and inappropriate because it reduces people to a single action and strips them of their humanity:
https://medium.com/s/user-friendly/why-im-done-saying-user-user-experience-and-ux-in-2019-4fdfc6b7de23

[nelsonic]

Our decision to call the human beings using our App(s) people instead of "Users"
has not been captured or communicated effectively. There are still many instances of the word "users" across our repositories and there shouldn't be. We need to avoid describing people as "Users":

"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

We need to change how we think about people.

So I'm re-opening this issue and adding a Todo Task (checklist) to the original description above. ⬆️

[nelsonic]

https://jnd.org/words_matter_talk_about_people_not_customers_not_consumers_not_users/