People, not “users”
Please — don’t refer to people as “users”.
There is no such thing.
It’s still super common (and has been for decades) for those who work in high tech to refer to their real or imagined customers as “users” when debating features, making up scenarios, and pitching products. Few things could be more shallow, short-sighted, and self defeating for teams.
There are so many things wrong with referring to real people as “users” that I hardly know where to start talking about this.
But, here’s the key point…
Real people cannot be represented by the word “user” — they are far too human for that oversimplification.
To make this a bit more clear, let’s compare.
Users are imaginary faceless non-humans who flawlessly operate the products you design and build. We assign them so-called personas and backstories (often using stock photos) to justify their made-up behavior to appease our management.
People have lives, concerns, hopes, tragedies, joy and everything in-between. To reduce them to “users” in order to figure out the right feature design completely loses sight of their humanity — flawed, random and chaotic as it may be. People are complex.
And it’s because real people are inconveniently unpredictable at times that our industry has historically needed to generalize them down into a well-controlled entity for use in defending our design and implementation decisions (aka “the user”). Anything else just isn’t efficient.
That said, some people and teams absolutely don’t do that. They have the right deeper conversations and acknowledge that people are just plain weird and unpredictable sometimes, and that’s ok. They’ll take that into account.
But, for many others, it’s far easier to use this one-dimensional shorthand than go into the endless permutations of human behavior when we’re trying to get stuff done in the current sprint (or whatever methodology you use).
Allowances for unexpected behavior are made of course, but they are conveniently isolated and referred to as “corner cases” (uncommon situations not often seen in general usage) that can be rationalized away and punted from bug lists. A person’s behavior is not a corner case, it’s life.
Even savvy Designers and Researchers who use A/B testing and multiple flights to observe exactly what happens during sessions are often guilty of second guessing the telemetry data from “users” when it doesn’t fit their expected outcomes.
And finally, I wasn’t going to go here but, doesn’t it strike you as more than a bit demeaning to call your customers “users” instead of people?
Thought so.
Q: Are all bad design decisions because we call people “users”?
No. Of course not. That’s ridiculous. I’d estimate only half.
But seriously, we’re often obscuring our bad design decisions behind the mask of serving one dimensional “users” rather than having those difficult design discussions about real people (who often don’t have idealized behavior). Compromises will still result, but they will be informed.
Q: Can we fix all this just by changing what word we use?
No. Of course not. That’s ridiculous, too. But it is a great start.
Q: What can we do to help move in a better direction?
A few things come to mind…
- Refocus conversations with or co-workers, management, and clients who insist on referring to their customers as “users”. If it feels like they are substituting a cardboard cutout for the real thing, start talking about people’s behavior, desires, emotions, state-of-mind, and real-world interruptions whenever you hear the phrase “the user will ________”. I can guarantee you that the person will not _________ when you want them to.
- Don’t let the next opportunity pass to restate or rephrase something said with “users” instead of people. Perhaps your organization or community will catch on and stop reducing humanity to “users” if you start doing it.
- Be a consistent example of putting people first by not using the word “users” in conversation or your written communication. You’ll sleep better and we’ll all benefit.
SUMMARY
The humans that use our products are people, not “users”.
Quit calling them “users” for a day. See if it sticks.
People will thank you.
Mike Pell is leading Design for The Microsoft Garage, a worldwide program for turning employee’s wild ideas into reality. Bold, insightful and uncompromising, Mike is recognized as a thought leader in the emerging field of Smart Information.
Learn more at futuristic.com
or follow @mryankeeslicker
