Over the past twenty years or so there has been a marked move in the tourism industry to refer to tourists as visitors. I can still vaguely recall the days when local information centers were called tourist information and advertisements in magazines invited tourists to come and visit. Then, there was a subtle shift toward calling people visitors. Although there are still some spots (like the local Cavendish Tourist Mart) that have clearly missed the trend, the shift is so ubiquitous that these places really stand out in a negative way. I guess the purpose of this move is obvious: nobody likes being referred to as a tourist.
As a general rule, nobody likes being labeled with a broad brush, particularly when the label carries negative connotations. Whether you're referred to as a tourist, a consumer, or, heaven forbid, a unit of labour, it grates on you. The same applies to referring to people who visit a website or work on a computer as users. Certainly the word user applies to people browsing the web or using a computer program, but that doesn't mean it's the best word for the job. Yet almost everyone writing about usability, site design, or programming refers to their potential audience as users.
Some people might find this distinction trivial, but calling people users is unfortunate particularly when more positive and human words such as people, visitor, or audience are available to you. For the past few years I've tried to be especially conscious of writing people as much as possible as a rule of thumb. In design documents, usability analyses, and proposals you can almost always talk about how people or visitors will be affected by your decisions as opposed to users.
It may sound cheesy, but the simple act of writing in this way actually changes the way you'll design systems. Referring to users as people actually helps you to think about your final audience as real people. It plays an important role in humanizing your work and makes you more sympathetic to everyone's feedback and concerns. Even when you're writing content that will never be seen by a user, this positive outlook can help you out in the long run.
Sure there are times when only the word user will apply but ninety percent of the time you can do without it. So, come on, let's follow the tourism industry and bring people back into the process.
Comments
Peter Rukavina - February 17, 2004 5:31 pm
I prefer <I>reader</I> when talking about websites (and sometimes <I>customer</I> when it's appropriate).
I've noticed that all of the hip TV travel shows (like <I>Pilot Guides</I>) prefer <I>traveler</I> to tourist or visitor. I believe the distinction there is more one of age and class than of activity, although I'm sure many travelers would beg to differ.
Don't get me started about <I>stakeholder</I>, the favourite word of bureaucrats who want to chart everyone's <I>life events</I>.
The Deuce - February 17, 2004 10:07 pm
Oh users. They are such users. :)
Sorry guys but after working the last two and a half years in the tech support/administration industry I have learned one thing....they are just that...users.
Not everyone is a user, there are people like us out there. Users are their own breed. They want it now, they want it there way and they want it free. The best thing is they are never wrong and it is always your fault.
Users also have a strong tendancy to not buy books, not completely follow or read instructions, not take a pc course, not try google first, not check out the help section of your website and always have you teach them for free.
Users are fortunately only about 10 to 20 percent of the computer community but they have definitately earned their title.
So the term "users" stands out and is used regularly because it only takes a few bad apples to spoil a bunch.
Rob - February 17, 2004 11:31 pm
When researching psych papers, it's fun to estimate the date (I think it's sometime in the 60ies) when researchers stopped calling the people they studied "Subjects" and began calling them "Participants". I think the subtle change helped a whole lot when dealing with ethical issues (who would participate in anything involving electric shocks?). Now we can only call rats and lizards "subjects".
I think the switch from 'user' to 'visitor' will lead to good things if widely adopted.
And I've done my time in tech-support too (bleh), and I think it's a two-way street. Thinking of them as "users" or "clients" might lead to assumptions of idiocy, but when I think "customer service" I assume that it is their job to simply placate me. It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Shaking up titles is a Good Thing. In 10 years, let's call them "users" again.
nPhil - February 23, 2004 11:05 am
Come across this in a few places.
JC Hertz, in a discussion about the impact of online social networking on game design, suggested calling people 'players'.
Content Critical (Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton) talks about treating people as 'readers'.
'People' though, seems so bland as to be pointless.
In the arena of social stereotyping, which is argued to be a fundamental part of human behaviour, that word just has no tangible value (to me).
It's a bit like saying something is 'nice'. Positive, yes, meaningful, not really.
Visitor is oh-kay, but to me it implies that someone has little participation or that their involvement is transitory. This doesn't seem appropriate for message boards, web-mail or other web-based services. The same way that the term 'guest-book' for a simple message board system always seemed inappropriate too.
Interestingly though, I don't have a negative reaction to the term 'user' and I'm not convinced that it dehumanises any more than the alternatives. Not for me anyway.
Perhaps the suggestion should be that you should find a term that feels positive for you, engenders a level of compassion for your target group, and use that?