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Is it time to retire the term ‘USER’?
How AI is Forcing a Rethink of Our Digital Relationships
Have you ever paused mid-sentence while writing “user” in your design documents and wondered, “Is this the right word?” Reading a recent MIT Technology Review article questioning the term “user” nudged me into deep reflection about how we label humans interacting with our digital designs. It made me realize how language subtly shapes our perspectives and practices in user experience design.
How We Got Here
The original article brilliantly maps out the journey of the word “user,” starting in the mainframe era of the 1950s, when computers were enormous, costly machines managed only by specially trained technicians. These “users” were specialists performing specific tasks. Over decades, as personal computing emerged and became widespread, the term persisted — even as technology became deeply embedded in everyday life. Today, in an AI-driven landscape, terms like “collaborator,” “assistant,” and “partner” are gaining traction, reflecting a more nuanced, intimate relationship between people and technology.
Don Norman’s insight that early computer engineers viewed humans simply as components in larger systems struck a chord with me. This mechanistic perspective may have been appropriate in the past, but…
