

Don’t use “My” in UI elements. - alanh
http://weblog.muledesign.com/2010/06/unsuck_it_special_byebye_my.php

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nas
Slightly offtopic, but sometimes I wonder about the number of man-years wasted
because Microsoft decided to use "Program Files" instead of "Programs". "Yes,
you can finally put spaces in your file names. Well done. That doesn't make it
a good idea."

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Groxx
Oh, to go back to the 8.3 days... 11 ASCII characters is enough to name your
files, right?

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spicyj
12 characters, if you count the dot.

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z92
Which OS was that?

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cschep
I think by 8.3, he meant DOS 8.3 ?

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rlm
8.3 refers to: 8 chars, a dot, 3 chars, which was the limit for filenames.

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watty
So using "my" is lazy, sucks, and bad style but "your" is natural, friendly,
and easy to maintain. I don't get it.

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alanh
1\. “My” will inevitably contradict with “Your” (see the article’s LinkedIn
screenshot). It seems forced. Using “Your,” when appropriate, approximates a
_dialog_ between you[r system] and the user.

2\. Avoid both for simple labels, tabs, and buttons.

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brianpan
Eventually, you will need copy that explains something to the user. When you
do, you will not be able to keep your copy consistent by continuing to use
"my".

"If you have questions about your account, call..."

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dataguy
Nice topic. Just talked to my co-founder about that. We are developing both
web service and mobile app, so there are to different views on the problem. We
didn't really thought about the whole problem of calling the user "you" or
"me" yet, so here is where we are today:

In the web service we use "you" everywhere. So far so good. But for the mobile
app (we just finished the first prototype - without beutification and such) we
used "my" in almost every case... and we investigated why: For us it feels
convenient that if I hold my cell in my hand, it is MY phone.. and such is the
mobile apps that I use. They are MY apps, and as MY apps, they are a part of
me (I take them with me everywhere I go - just like my keys). In the keys-
example you would also say "my keys" and not just "the keys".. and you say "my
phone" and not "the phone". I think it is just intuitive that it is "my app"
and (inside of the app) "my posts" and "my messages"...

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starpilot
This is being overthought. It's an issue of brevity. "Edit profile." Am I
expecting it to allow me to edit a profile of someone else? In so many cases,
"my" and "your" are present when the user is unable to interact with content
other than their own (e.g. personal finance sites).

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brudgers
Why not just "Profile?"

Or just "starpilot?"

For people who spend lots of time at a site that will work.

For my Mom trying to deal with her ISP, not so great.

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wccrawford
I think people started using 'my' because 'Go to my profile' sounds more
friendly than 'Go to your profile' as links. When you say 'you' the person is
automatically distanced from you. When helping a customer face-to-face, you
can say 'we' and 'our', but that makes even less sense than 'my' on a webpage.

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alanh
The link doesn’t need “Go to” at all though — it’s a link. “Your profile”
works just dandy — if not just “profile.”

Edit: “See your profile” is a friendly alternative, too

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InclinedPlane
As a further improvement it should be "Go to my profile: click here".

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daychilde
Why not make "Go to my profile" the clickable link?

I'm tempted to suggest the next logical extension would be "Go to my profile:
click here <\-- HEY! That was the link!" :-S

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torrenegra
This is how I've been doing it for several years. I may be wrong, of course.

I think that “Me” or “My” should be used when a title of a section (a page or
a field) does not contain an action (a verb). It should also be used when a
button, link, or title of a page contains a phrase that implies that the user
is ordering the system to perform an action. For example:

Field Title: My Company Name: Page Title: My Main Menu Button: [ Change My
Password ] Link: Reset My Account

In contrast, I think that “Your” or “you” should be used when the system is
telling or asking something from the user. For example:

Field Title: What is your password? Message: You can always change your
settings… Link: Click here to contact your agent Message: Your are signed in
as:

Whenever I have the option of using one or the other, I go for “My”. For
example, if I have the option of using both “Post My Project” and “Post Your
Project”, I use “Post My Project”. Why? Because on “Post Your Project” the
system is asking the user to do something, while in “Post My Project” the user
is ordering the system to perform an action. I think that users like to feel
they are in control.

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notahacker
I would suggest that "Edit My Profile" implies a sense of ownership and choice
that the instructive "Edit your profile" or vague "Edit profile" doesn't,
which could conceivably actually have tangible benefits in terms of
encouraging user behaviour.

This is a testable hypothesis as is the claim by the author of the original
post that it's "helpful" not to have conflict between "my" and "your" for
different functions.

Does anyone have any data to support either conclusion?

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brandonkm
I read about this recently when browsing the Yahoo design pattern library
[http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/core/yourvmy.htm...](http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/core/yourvmy.html)

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rwhitman
I have had so many debates surrounding this over the years its not funny. I
feel elated to have a definitive reason to go with 'your' over 'my' and an
article I can send people when they challenge me. Win.

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voidpointer
Do we really need these pesky pronouns? Putting labels like your pen, your
mug, your red stapler on stuff is equally crazy, isn't it? Al link/button
labeled Profile/Account/Settings... is just fine. There is no surprise in
clicking on something labeled "profile" resulting in your profile being
brought up, what else would you expect? My profile?

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sahillavingia
Another item to add to my ongoing list of usability checks (to be published,
soon).

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bry
I wish I could vote this up more than once!

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bry
You guys are silly. I only meant that I agreed with it so much that I wish
there were a way emphasize my vote. Now its "Oh wait, those guys voted down
his post, I will too!"

Way to build community guys. I still love you though.

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alsomike
I agree with this, but for different reasons. The difference between "Edit my
profile" and "Edit your profile" is really a difference in how the
relationship between user, interface and back-end system is conceived. When
the interface says "Edit my profile", it's represented as speaking for the
user to the system, so you have [user+interface] <\---> [system]. Which is a
technically accurate representation of client-server architecture, and also
generally the way the world looks from the perspective of any system - the UI
is decoupled, and speaks to the system on my behalf, in my voice. This is the
system-centered perspective.

To the average user, the world looks quite different: [user] <\--->
[interface+system]. Here, the interface isn't part of "me", it's outside, part
of the system, so it should speak as the system, not as "me". This is the
user-centered perspective, because it reflects how users see the world.

I think this also speaks to why programmers generally tend to be bad at user
experience - it's almost an ontological problem. What is software, really? Is
it just system, with interface added in later, almost as an afterthought? Or
is it interface+system?

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_delirium
Hmm, somehow I have the inverse mental model, though it might be because of
correlation with where I see each usage rather than anything inherent. I
associate the "my" usage with cutesy/friendly AOL-style interfaces, where
we're trying to make the user feel fuzzy ownership over their stuff: "Change
my buddy icon", "update my profile", etc. I associate the "your" usage with a
more cold, detached system-centric Unix model, where the programmer/system
sees this as _your_ stuff and responsibility: "enter your password", "choose
your username", "wipe your home directory [y/n]?", etc.

Perhaps at the extremes, something like: "Hello, I'm Clippy! Let's edit our
files together!" versus "Computron 5000 online, please state your request."

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jamesbritt
This reminds me of some observations by Douglas Hofstadter and self-
referential expressions. I forget where he wrote this (Metamagical Themas,
perhaps), but he wondered, when you come across a dirty car with "wash me!"
drawn into the dirt, to what does "me" refer? Why do we assume it's meant to
be the car; perhaps those words are some desperate plea from a passerby in
need of a bath.

The funny thing with seeing a folder named "My Documents" is that since I did
not create that folder, and did not pick that name, my gut reaction is to
attach "my" to whatever entity _did_ create it.

