[IxDA Discuss] TechCrunch defends the life of the "user"

Oleh Kovalchuke tangospring at gmail.com
Thu Aug 2 08:50:23 PDT 2007


The flaw with this approach is that "you, the developer" have different
cultural background/experience/expectations than "her, the blog reader".

This is one of the reasons for creating and referring to personas.

Oleh


-- 
Oleh Kovalchuke
Interaction Design is the Design of Time
http://www.tangospring.com/IxDtopicWhatIsInteractionDesign.htm


On 8/2/07, Christopher Fahey <chris.fahey at behaviordesign.com> wrote:
>
> Sorry to resurrect the "user" thread... But it occurred to me that the
> most natural and common way that most people _already use_ to describe
> interactive experiences, and the one that has the most built-in empathy
> for the person/user being talked about, is simply using the word
> *"you"*.
>
> For example, instead of saying:
> "The user clicks SUBMIT and then clicks OKAY in the confirmation dialog
> box"
> ... or
> "The person/customer/etc. clicks SUBMIT and then clicks OKAY in the
> confirmation dialog box"
> ... we should perhaps just say:
> "You click SUBMIT and then click OKAY in the confirmation dialog box."
>
> This is how normal people talk. Why do we or should we communicate
> differently? What's wrong with the second person?
>
> Full essay here:
> http://www.graphpaper.com/2007/08-02_user-vs-you
>
> Cheers,
> -Cf
>
> Christopher Fahey
> ____________________________
> Behavior
> http://www.behaviordesign.com
> me: http://www.graphpaper.com
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