
Yours vs. Mine - relation
http://dcurt.is/yours-vs-mine
======
cantlin
Interfaces and marketing that use "my" always irk me by, for lack of a better
phrase, _coming on too strong_. I'm all too aware of the human hands that
typed out that button label - it seems damned impudent of them to be assuming
my voice. It implies a certain intimacy. _My cart_ sounds like an appropriate
label for something I've filled, but so long as it's empty trying to foist it
off as _mine_ just comes across as a desperate plea for emotional investment.

I think marketeers leveraging "my" tend to envision that we will come to think
of their product as like some treasured childhood teddy bear that we hug
firmly to our bosoms each night. In life though, when we talk about owning
things - my this, my that - it's often in order to identity ourselves with
them. For most services, that's a lot to assume. Treading the HN path of
avoiding possessive determiners at all may be the wiser path.

~~~
nwh
> I think marketeers leveraging "my" tend to envision that we will come to
> think of their product as like some treasured childhood teddy bear that we
> hug firmly to our bosoms each night.

I'm not sure if it is as pronounced anywhere else, but my area has a lot of
shops that use the prefix in their name.

My Chemist

My Hairdresser

My Bookstore

My House

All places I walk past regularly, and they're all equally as awkward. Same
goes for interfaces trying to emulate the same thing.

~~~
trafficlight
Interesting. I don't think this is a thing at all where I live. Where do you
live?

~~~
nwh
Australia. I suspect it's a localised thing.

------
thejerz
Ready? This is going to blow your mind...

NEITHER.

Just say "Purchases" or "Bookmarks." Not yours, not mine, not his, not hers.
Just "it."

Now, get back to writing code!

~~~
kyro
This is a really dismissive comment that could be used to trivialize just
about any article and debate here on HN. While it isn't a big issue, this
topic is something designer's do think about and a discussion about its
effects on user experience seems reasonable. Plus I doubt anyone's losing
hours of productivity over this.

~~~
jankins
I disagree, I think if the OP was attempting to make a fair analysis, he
should have acknowledged the third option. My immediate thought was the same
expressed in this comment, as My & Your add wordiness. I suppose it depends on
the overall tone & genre of the software you're (I'm?) designing, but it's an
obvious alternative.

~~~
nswanberg
Dustin's post was not simply about whether to prepend labels with "my" or
"your". That choice was an example of a more fundamental concern: whether to
imagine the user as seeing an app as an extension of themselves or as seeing
the app as a separate entity, and the implications of that in the interface.

It may have been helpful for the post to consider the effects of using no
pronouns on a user's mental model, and a better response to the post would be
to explore those effects, not to dismiss it outright as a false dilemma. A
much better method of dismissing posts that have obvious answers is to not
comment on them.

------
scottjackson
From the section of the iOS HIG about writing alert copy:

> Avoid using “you,” “your,” “me,” and “my” as much as possible. Sometimes,
> text that identifies people directly can be ambiguous and can even be
> interpreted as an insult.

~~~
tadfisher
I agree with this. Using the example from the article, "Profile" is just as
expressive as "My Profile", more concise, and groups better with other similar
actions. Taken to its logical extreme, you'll have to put "My" everywhere;
imagine GMail with "My Inbox", "My Starred", "My Important Messages", "My
Circles", etc.

~~~
kyro
I think pronouns should be reserved more for interactions, where a UI's
personality really shines through. So when refreshing your inbox, you may see
"Fetching your email", for example.

~~~
tadfisher
Why does a UI have to have personality? Why can't it just look good and be
easy to use? Does anyone actually care if an application is "speaking" as if
it is a conscious entity?

~~~
olliesaunders
Good UI design is all about effective communication. If you have a UI that is
pretending to be something it isn’t (a person) then it is basically lying to
you. That’s hardly good communication. It’s confusing and dishonest.

And believe it or not there are some users who won’t understand that it isn’t
really a person. Some minds are very prone to anthropomorphizing especially
when they are dealing with something they find hard to understand and
unpredictable like a computer.

~~~
jtheory
"Having a personality" is going to happen whatever you do.

Somewhat counterintuitively, this doesn't mean your interface pretends it's a
person; but all copy is written by people -- words are used by people only
(pretty much), directly or indirectly -- and the words chosen are projecting
some personality onto the application whether you want to or not.

There are no words/phrases/instructions without baggage, connotations, etc..

~~~
olliesaunders
I have no objection to that. I just don’t want those words written by people
to make it sound like the application is a person. The app can talk about
itself doing things (it does do things after all) but not as a human being
with feelings and stuff.

------
kyro
I mostly agree.

I also think that physical vs. digital is a big determinant of whether Yours
or Mine is appropriate. When using a physical object, you are at the very
least spatially aware of all of the components. Your pencil, car, hammer are
all items that operate due to mechanisms easily understandable at a very basic
level simply by observation. There's no mystery. It is purely an object, and
it is _my_ object.

Digitally, however, you cannot understand the mechanism by which a mobile app
works simply by observing it. There is a level of obscurity, a veil of
mystery, as if someone, something were behind the scenes pulling the strings.
Unlike looking at an engine and observing all of the gears and rods involved
in making an axle spin, one cannot observe bytes of data travelling between
microprocessors. I think it's that layer of obscurity that gives digital
products a degree of personality that a car or hammer or pencil or knife
cannot have. There's something at play that you're not seeing with digital
interfaces, and perhaps we most comfortably assume that another human is
involved in the process.

------
dylangs1030
Excellent thought process on the differences in possessive pronouns.

But what if you go for a more minimalist approach? What if your app doesn't
use possessive pronouns at all?

You could just display "Settings", "Settings have been saved!", "Profile
picture has been changed." etc and I've seen apps that do this natively.

Although, to a certain extent I suppose that proves his point, as apps will be
forced to act as though they aren't using possessive pronouns if they use "My"
- it would be a little strange to display messages like "My profile picture
has been changed", etc. Using the possessive pronoun "Your" is the only one
with special modifiers throughout the app's structure that don't sound
redundant.

------
antidaily
I've always thought there was something condescending about "My" stuff. Like,
I need this page to tell me where my stuff is so I don't edit someone else's.
Or something.

------
acavailhez
In foreign languages with a polite form of "You" (such as French or German),
there is an additional question: should a website use the polite of familiar
form.

And it's widely accepted that a website should use the polite form.

~~~
Swizec
Is it really widely accepted? I'm still weirded out when _people_ use the
polite form. Let alone computers, that's just silly.

Why would a computer/website be polite to me? They have no concept of these
things. Just using polite forms doesn't mean you're being polite, you have to
mean it. A computer is as of yet incapable of having intentions.

~~~
astine
Why would a computer use the familiar form? It seems to me that I would
uncomfortable if a computer, or worse, a web interface actively maintained by
team of strangers, started to address in language that suggested a certain
level of intimacy.

~~~
Swizec
It might just be my youngness and general disapproval of the polite form
speaking here. I really think English has gone in the right direction by
removing their polite form in favour of being polite without senseless
grammatical contortions.

~~~
to3m
It's a minor point but actually English has only the polite form. Stiff upper
lip, and all that. "Thou" is the singular, but it isn't used much any more.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou#History>

------
jrogers65
This article could be better - it presents a problem but does not resolve it
in any meaningful way. It asks the equivalent of "which is better, left or
right?" and concludes with "my opinion is that left is better."

This is not a pragmatic approach to the problem - where is the research? Where
is the substantiation of _why_ left is better than right? There is a
_rationalisation_ provided, sure, but people rationalise shooting heroin too,
so that doesn't go too far. It would be interesting to see a study on this.

------
michaelfeathers
False choice. I think that the best choice is neither. Unadorned 'Profile' is
better than 'My Profile' or 'Your Profile.'

I think there is a decent analog here with unadorned naming being like flat
design and my/your being like skeuomorphism.

------
cdent
I have to say I disagree with the author's value assertion. It may true that
people do treat computer interfaces in a social way, but whether this is
useful (for many difference definitions of useful) is clearly open to debate.
I wrote a paper about this a few years ago that pins the popularity of the
idea of the computer as interactive artifact on Lucy Suchman and her work
_Plans and Situated Actions_. The relevant paragraph is here:
<http://peermore.com/astool.html#nid21T> (take off the fragment for the whole
paper).

If we're actually having some kind of debate about how to signifiy in an
interface I'd probably choose "profile" and forego "my" and "your" as they
imply a relationship that does not exist and a facility in the interface that
is not possible.

Given that most people aren't actually concerned about that and just want
their stuff to be "nice" or "friendly" I'd pick one of "your" or "my",
whichever fit in the grammar of the rest of the system, and be consistent.

------
snilan
I see it as a conversation happening both ways. It just depends on who is the
initiator of the conversation.

Consider for example the following two imagined scenarios:

In order to send a new tweet:

1) You click a button that says "Send My Tweet".

2) You click a button that says "Send Your Tweet".

In the first case, you are telling Twitter to send the tweet you just wrote.
The power lies with Twitter to send it.

In the second case, Twitter is telling you to send the tweet. In this case,
the user has all the power.

.

.

It's interesting to compare Facebook's approach with Twitter's:

Facebook is a bit of an oddball in addressing the user. Facebook usually
addresses the user as "you", but it sometimes refers to the user in the third
person. On the home screen, it asks "How's are you doing, Sean?" and displays
the link to your profile as just your name. On your actual profile page, if
you hover over the Activity Log button, it will say "See your activity on
Facebook". But then when you go to privacy settings, it says "Who can see my
stuff?". This makes a ton of sense. By using "my" instead of "your", Facebook
is making the user feel like they have control of their stuff.

Twitter is pretty squarely in the "Me" camp, as evidenced by the link to your
profile on the top of the page.

If the website has something informational to tell the user, like a
notification, they will always refer to the user as "you".

For example: "Bill just retweeted you", "Bill just liked your status", "Your
page is undergoing maintenance".

When you're changing account settings, the website will invariably refer to
the user as "you". You are the one who actually needs to perform an action.

For example: "Change your password", "Update your email".

~~~
e_proxus
I think there's also a difference regarding publicity of the material.

Using "your" is more appropriate for things that already are, or are expected
to become, public as a part of the standard workflow (think photo sharing
application).

Using "my" works better for things that are private and sensitive, like "My
settings" or "My reading list" is often something that should not be shared,
or only explicitly shared.

------
lominming
In general, I think avoiding either My or Your is better. However, there could
be situations in the UI that you may want to separate My Stuff vs Other's
Stuff. E.g. a shared folder with a header "My Files" vs "Others". In this
case, I think using "My" is stronger. There other other cases like "Your files
have been fetched" that sounds more right. I think in general, if you are
labeling something, My is ok. If you are communicating a message (e.g. through
a notification), Your is better.

------
nnq
His conclusion is totally against the "the best interface is no interface"
UI/X design idea. He goes:

> Interfaces are much more abstract, and much more intelligent; they far more
> closely resemble social interactions than physical tools.

...therefore if I (the user) feel that I have a social-like interaction with
the interface, it means that I am _definitely noticing it IS there_ , whereas
if I can feel it as an extension of self, I can get more easily to just ignore
it once I get used to it and actually feel that there is "no interface". It's
easier to ignore the hammer in your hand the person you're talking to, at
least for me (and I believe for most social people).

Then again, if you are creating something like the UI for an ecommerce site,
you probably want to give the user part of the feeling that he is in a real
shop, that implies a real physical interface, so you say "Your shopping cart"
- but I'm not sure this is necessarily a good idea.

Imho, OP did a good analysis of the interaction perspective, but somehow
managed to arrive at what is 90% of the time the wrong conclusion (but then
again, maybe my 90% is his 10%...).

------
kirarev
in some cases couldn't you design the app not to mention "your" vs "mine" and
just say "user profile" or profile?

just a thought. very interesting commentary on the connotations of the usage
of "your profile" "my profile' nonetheless.

~~~
baddox
That seems strictly worse than the first two options.

------
dredmorbius
The descriptor should either be unqualified "Purchases", not "Your/My
Purchase", which is redundant and pandering, or, for any feature which can
scale beyond a single user, identify the relevant user (your enterprise
customers will thank you): "username => Settings". It's also useful to
classify groupings, tags, or other attributes (Engineering, Accounting, HR,
etc.) and integrate these with security and other aspects.

I always found "My Computer" to be annoying. It's pedantic (no shit, this is
my computer), or wrong (no, this is Mike's computer, I'm just borrowing it),
or void of useful context (this is a multi-user computer but I'm accessing it
from my or someone else's account).

From a testing perspective, individually naming elements based on their
ownership attribute makes for hell in scripting, testing, or writing suitable
generic instructions (how do you tell Aunt Tilly how to change her settings
when "My Computer" has been sensibly renamed "Aunt Tilly's Computer"?).

Sub-par article fails to consider many other relevant alternatives and
considerations.

------
Felix21
I DON'T agree with this conclusion.

You can easily just test both (with Neither as your control) and survey your
users to find out which group is more satisfied with your UI.

When it comes to what customers want or will like, what you "think" is almost
always wrong, so stop thinking and start testing.

~~~
dredmorbius
The test shouldn't be what users _say_ they're more satisfied with, but which
labeling _results in better task performance_. Now, if self-reported user
satisfaction is your designated task, that's fine, but contexts such as multi-
user support, shared system access, single-user use of multiple accounts, and
centralized maintenance/access of many multi-user systems might also be
considered.

------
with_cheer
I feel interacting by voice changes this a bit. Using the Xbox as an
example... Microsoft has a 'my pins' option (to select favorites) while the
Amazon video app has 'your videos'. Certainly feels odd to say'your videos'out
loud.

------
Strang
I know this is only tangentially related, but this has always annoyed me in
Windows. For example, "My Pictures" does not contain my pictures. My photos
are in c:\photos.

And it gets worse with every Windows release. The standard file dialog in
Windows 7 is absolutely ridiculous. There is a tree on the left, with
absolutely worthless (to me) entries: Desktop, Favorites, Recent Places, My
Photos, My Documents, etc., etc. The actual hard drive navigation is at the
very bottom, and usually requires scrolling.

A sane navigation tree would just be a list of volumes.

~~~
T-hawk
This is because Windows has moved to modern file system organization concepts,
keeping data for users within the user accounts and not in the global file
space. Why are your photos in c:\photos? Why do you organize your files like
it's 1995?

You'll find that that left tree is useful if you flow with the design of
Windows rather than fighting against it. Desktop is meant to be an easily
visible place for short-term storage of working documents. Recent Places is
pretty smart about remembering frequently used local and network locations. My
Photos / My Documents are totally useful if you actually put things there like
the system is designed to do.

If you insist on drilling down to that hard drive navigation, don't blame the
software for yourself deciding to break past the abstraction.

~~~
Strang
Three reasons.

1) They aren't my photos, they are my family's photos. My wife has her own
user account and needs just as much access as I do. I'm sure there is some
sort of "sharing" solution, but then you lose the convenience of having one
location for "My Pictures", so what's the point?

2) C:\photos is a lot easier to type than C:\Users\xxx\Pictures. I much prefer
typing to mouse navigation.

3) Windows will actually admit that C:\photos is a directory on a hard drive.
If I navigate to "My Pictures", I get some pseudo-directory called Libraries >
My Pictures.

Also, are you really so limited that you think there is only One Way to
organize files on a hard drive, to the point that you feel the need to mock a
stranger for choosing a different location on his hard drive for photos? I
expect that snark on anonymous internet forums, but having it embedded in the
operating system is another matter.

------
mouly
Both usages have a valid context.

In system generated messages "yours" seems more appropriate. It implies that
someone else is talking to the user. If I got a message "My email was
received", I would feel like talking to myself.

The UI is an extension of human brain. So labeling things with "mine" will
make the UI feel natural. My contacts feels closer than your contacts.

I wrote about the same subject: <http://mouly.me/2011/07/my-contacts-or-your-
contacts/>

------
jalfresi
Interesting analysis, though personally I sit firmly in the camp that software
are tools and as such should not express a "personality" or attempt to provide
an "experience". For me, this suggests that straight nouns should be used for
this sort of thing i.e "Profile" rather than "(Your|My) Profile".

My power drill doesn't refer to the chuck as "Your/My chuck". My toaster
doesn't refer to to the bread as "Your/My bread" and my car doesn't refer to
"your/my door is ajar".

------
snambi
"your profile" sounds odd. Either "profile" or "my profile". May it should be
an action such as "edit profile" or "view profile".

------
nakodari
I have to disagree. The usage depends on what you are referring to. If it is
the user's files, then saying "My Uploads" is preferred over "Your Uploads".
Saying "My" shows the users that it is their files, therefore, they have full
control over their files and they can do whatever they wish with them.

------
Bockit
I like the explanation of terms, but come to a different conclusion. Rather
than a universal my/yours I would think it ends up being whatever is
appropriate to the interface. Some interfaces are for tasks that require
"tools" others not.

------
bmcleod
This is really the kind of thing where A/B testing is both necessary and
straightforward. Decently intuitive arguments can be made for both sides and
there isn't really overwhelming strength on either of them.

~~~
EvanMiller
What, pray tell, is the hypothesis to be tested? Whether "my" or "your"
results in more clicks? How do we know they aren't clicks borne of confusion?
Whether "my" or "your" users visit the site more often? Over what time frame?
A day? A week? A year? A decade?

A/B testing isn't magic fairy dust that settles design questions. You need to
have a clear hypothesis to test. It's especially difficult if the design
question concerns long-term perceptions and psychology. An A/B test in this
situation is anything but straightforward.

I'd be interested to learn about how this design decision was made in the
companies that have had to face it.

~~~
dbaupp
Reduce how often users click back or cancel or close after attempting the
action (I.e. to attempt to make them abort the action less often).

------
benaston
This could be empirically tested. For me "My Computer", "My Profile" reflects
the internal dialog occurring in the users head and (in my perception) has
less cognitive overhead than the reflexive "your".

------
n3rdy
If you _really really_ want to connect with the user, go with "Our".

------
pclark
I personally think this is a matter of personal preference, but the critical
thing is to ensure you always use the same terminology throughout the entire
application. Mixing them up is horrendous.

------
mhb
Somewhat topical pedantry:

The incorrect non-reflexive use of _myself_ to avoid the potentially incorrect
choice of I vs. me. As in:

 _... rather than the interface being an extension of myself._

~~~
mbrock
Maybe he just meant "an extension of my self."

------
ctruman
Is there really any effect or difference between using either?

------
DoubleCluster
OK, I'm going to pitch in:

The button should be called "My Settings" (or just "Settings") because it's a
command I'm shouting at the program. Compare with "Save"/"Open"/"Like". I want
to open MY settings. If the settings can't be loaded the program should tell
me: "There was an error loading your settings", because the program is talking
to me. The documentation could tell me the following: "To open your settings,
click the My Settings button". So yes, I favor the conversation pattern. Just
pretend you're talking to a human or to a computer with speech recognition.

------
DanBlake
I am pretty sure I saw "Pull to refresh" before it was used in tweetie, but I
cant remember where - Anyone have better memory than me?

------
anigbrowl
My stuff is what runs locally. Your stuff runs on a server, which also hosts
other people's stuff.

------
melloclello
You know what I do when I inadvertently open a link to a Svbtle network post?
I close the tab.

~~~
loteck
I'm curious, why do you feel this way?

~~~
melloclello
You know that nauseous feeling you used to get from reading a Daring Fireball
post? That.

------
ramses0
Brilliantly stated!

"My..." implies the interface is an extension of the users brain.

"Your..." implies the interface is a tool to be mastered.

Both might be appropriate for certain use cases. Using github as an example
interface with personality, perhaps "My Forks" but "Your SSH Keys"?

------
humbyvaldes
My stuff

------
ahoyhere
Is it really true that no one here has genuinely studied this question before?

Findings from cognitive science and UI research:

People attribute personalities to everything, including software.

Personalized emails, with a person's name, have higher conversion rates.

One of the ways the brain deals with reading is to pretend, on some level,
that it's having an imaginary conversation. Concrete description of objects,
use of the active instead of passive tense, questions, and keywords like
"You," all improve understanding, attention, and memorability.

It's that simple, guys. The research is out there. It's not hard to find. It's
not hard to read, either! Just pick up a couple books on writing/cog sci and
subscribe to the ACM and do a quick search of their library once in a while.

Or continue to have an argument based solely on what you feel, as if the data
is not out there… that works, too.

------
thoughtcriminal
I opt for my stuff because its more immersive. It's the first person
narrative. As creator, I want to get out of the way of their experience as
much as possible.

