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Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

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Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#241

Post by jltsiren »

o11c wrote: post #58
wmeddie wrote: post #14

Definitely read https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-... if you haven't yet. Then think about what are the requirements your system needs when it comes to names. Does the app need to know what a user's name is at all or is a username enough? Does it need to distinguish the family part of their name for anything? A thing I think is the most general is to just have a Full Name field (min length 1…

There are 4 main name forms that I often see: * Full name (John Smith) * Index name (Smith, John) - mostly for meatspace compatibility. * Preferred name (John Smith) - used in lists with other people's names * Personal name (John) - used in direct communications

The name used in direct communications can depend on the level of formality and on the context. For example, John / Mr. Smith / Dr. Smith.

Then there is the difference between the "full" name and the legal full name, with all names spelled out. The latter is sometimes necessary, but it can be awkward or inappropriate to use it in most places that expect a full name.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#242

Post by Findecanor »

tommiegannert wrote: post #101

Related: as a Swede, the first times I had to fill out a honorific, it felt very weird. And many times they are required. We don't use honorifics in Sweden. The only difference between formal and informal address, is pretty much whether you use a nickname or not. The idea that there is a single category of "western name" is wonky. Another is that my spoken/given name is after my "middle" name. Especially American for…

I find that while public Swedish records always store my full name, the "underlining" has often been lost. Many times I have been addressed by nurses or civil servants who assumed that my first given name was my spoken name.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#243

Post by qwytw »

manlobster wrote: post #94
yreg wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slack does this and I don't like it. I have Hungarian colleagues and some (but not all!) of them have entered the family name first. I always feel awkward responding to them, because I don't know if I'm typing `Hello $FIRSTNAME` or `Hello $LASTNAME`.

You can do `Hello @TheirSlackHandle`.

Or 'Hello Comrade Software Engineer/{x}' if you want to make it extra awkward.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#244

Post by pmontra »

Renaud wrote: post #174
pmontra wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some profile managers or registration forms in European sites asked me how I want to be addressed, including a menu with Mister, Doctor, PhD etc. American sites usually have at most name, middle name and family name and mails start with Dear Name. English is easy because Dear is OK for all genres. Other languages need a different word for male and female people so their either end up collecting personal information t…

One way to address the issue with gendered grammar would be to ask the user to chose between which of ‘benvenuto’ and ‘benvenuta’ should be used when corresponding with them. That way, you don’t strictly know their gender, you don’t have to ask for it, just what grammar construct they prefer you use.

That's another way to do it but I can see at least a couple of downsides:

1, the easy one: there might be more that one inflected form (gendered) in the UI and it could be tedious for the user to select all of them. Of course by choosing one we can automatically set the others.

2, the substantial one: strictly speaking the users don't tell us about their gender but there are strong hints about what they are, given the statistics of the general population and the name they gave us. I'm not sure how the Privacy Authority of a EU country would look at that but IANAL.

Furthermore we're starting to make our app enter the rabbit hole of non binary gender identities and to handle that we would have spend more time and money for maybe no reason.

I give an example that covers all those points:

Of my current customers one is running a service for which they are mandated to collect personal data. They must know the official gender as in the official ID documents of the country. Anything more than that could be nice but it is not necessary and would be probably unexpected by users, maybe even looked at suspiciously.

Another customer is running a B2B service. They need only a username and the company email of the users. If they want to welcome them with Benvenuto/a, Bienvenido/a, Bienvenu/ue they would have to ask for a bit of personal data that could put them needlessly into the scope of GDPR.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#245

Post by nicbou »

realusername wrote: post #69

It's not only and ansian thing. In France thr convention is LASTNAME Firstname (with that casing)

It's worth noting that this convention is also applicable in Francophone African countries, but not in Quebec.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#246

Post by ncoelhosantos »

There's an established pattern for this, which is to provide users with a choice of:

  Sort order:
    - By First Name
    - By Last Name

  Display order:
    - First, Last
    - Last, First
Obviously, users can input names in a multitude of ways. But the convention is to offer at least two distinct fields, "First name" and "Last name". The sort order determines if the items are ordered by first name or last name. And the display order determines if the full name for each item is displayed as First name and then or last name, or the other way around.

And finally, set a default based by the user's locale and region.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#247

Post by johneth »

muzani wrote: post #67

Just have a single "name field" and maybe preferred name, which is not the same. The family/given name format doesn't make much sense here. Indian name: Sathiavelllu Arunachalam, known as SA or Seth SE Asian ethnic Chinese names: Harry Lee Kuan Yew, (English name) (Surname) (Given name). Hated the name Harry and got it removed, though many Chinese are referred to by an English name. Indonesian name: Fatimah Azzahra (…

The GOV.UK design system[1] agrees with you:

> "Use single or multiple fields depending on your user’s needs. Not everyone’s name fits the first-name, last-name format. Using multiple name fields mean there’s more risk that a person’s name will not fit the format you’ve chosen and that it is entered incorrectly."

and

> "Avoid asking users for their title. It’s extra work for them and you’re asking them to potentially reveal their gender and marital status, which they may not want to do."

and

> "If your service stores personal information, you should allow users to update their details, including their name. Allowing users to change their name helps your service respect their personal identity. It also means they can continue using your service without having to start over. People change their name for many reasons. For example, because of a change in marital status, family situation or gender. Avoid making it hard for users to change their name. As well as causing them distress, it may make them reluctant to use your service."

[1] https://design-system.service.gov.uk/patterns/names/

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#248

Post by nicbou »

MAGZine wrote: post #7

Have you looked at how the tech giants before you have solved this issue?

The tech giants often don't account for EU customs, let alone non-Western ones.

Instead I would look at how the relevant governments handle it, if they have something like the UK's component catalog.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#249

Post by Eavolution »

pmontra wrote: post #139
Ekaros wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that with things like ticket there should be explicit "as in passport" instructions. Not that people will follow those...

Some people have more than one passport (multiple citizenship) and could use a different one to enter different countries because of visas. The name could be partly different on those passports. But yes, they probably know the passport they'll use since the time they buy the ticket.

I as an example have 2 passports, and my name is first middle1 middle2 last.

One of my passports has my name like that, the other is first middle1 last, so even between passports its not the same, as one of them drops one of my middle names.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle Asian-style “Family name first” when designing interfaces?

#250

Post by [deleted] »

muzani wrote: post #67

Just have a single "name field" and maybe preferred name, which is not the same. The family/given name format doesn't make much sense here. Indian name: Sathiavelllu Arunachalam, known as SA or Seth SE Asian ethnic Chinese names: Harry Lee Kuan Yew, (English name) (Surname) (Given name). Hated the name Harry and got it removed, though many Chinese are referred to by an English name. Indonesian name: Fatimah Azzahra (…

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