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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?

#461

Post by lelanthran »

mediumdeviation wrote: post #459
lelanthran wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given/family removes ambiguity for a larger number of humans than first/last, I dunno. The former places the cognitive load on the user. The latter places no additional cognitive load on either party. After all, what exactly do you mean by "Family Name" and how sure are you that meaning you have is shared by even a significant minority of cultures and people? How many countries have passports that label each name i…

> I dunno. The former places the cognitive load on the user. The latter places no additional cognitive load on either party. It adds cognitive load because I've not seen a system where first/last name is not a synonym for given/family name, except it also indicates the system designer is not aware of alternative ordering for names and is forcing me to decide between correct order/incorrect semantic vs. incorrect orde…

You don't have to guess. There's an ordering of your names on your ID.

Use that. I'd be surprised if if is different to the one used by your country's revenue service.

If the taxman in your country both knows who you are and has a name for you, that's the correct name, regardless of whether unspoken rules about given/family/calling names exist or not.

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

#462

Post by mzs »

alexvitkov wrote: post #361
ghaff wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "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." I'm always a bit surprised when I see some e.g. tech conferences still insisting on title as a mandatory field (or really asking at all). It's not just the gender and the marital status but some people attach a lot of significance to all manner…

If you plan to only do English forever that's acceptable, but there's _a lot_ of languages where you need to know someone's gender to be able to use their name in a sentence. Weird thing to look over in a thread about internationalization

Couldn't people enter whatever is the equivalent of the nominative gendered singular form of the full name if they cared?

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

#463

Post by mzs »

kypro wrote: post #357
Tainnor wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Germany, titles are still rather important. I agree that it's silly but if you have a PhD you're very likely to put "Dr." on your doorbell name plate.

What do you mean by, "important"? That it's impolite to not refer to someone using their preferred title, or that people tend to expect them?

Never had a Herr Doktor for a supervisor huh?

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

#464

Post by nerdponx »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #392
nerdponx wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly don't mind being called "Mr.", but I don't see why it can't just be another field, or part of a free-text field.

Like you, I don't mind being called "Mr.", but the problem is that my sister would very much prefer not to put "Miss" (and not to lie) because it results in undesired advances, and my wife would also prefer to not put "Mrs." because it results in discrimination for the opposite reason, and because it results in people asking to talk to me instead. At the same time, you can't drop it entirely, because my aunt will com…

Right, so ask them their full formal name, and how they want to be addressed.

  What is your full name?
    Ner D. P. Onx, BS DDS LCSW

  How would you like to be addressed?
    Mr. Onx

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

#465

Post by archon1410 »

makeitdouble wrote: post #457
RestlessMind wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many Indian languages where verb conjugations are either male or female and there is no neutral option.

By curiosity how do you deal with generic instructions ? Like if you needed to have "you will need to come to this counter to apply for special discounts" printed next to a ticketing machine ?

Male pronouns are assumed in most such cases, but that is not necessary in the example you provided—the instruction would be the same for both genders, in Hindi at least. "आपको विशेष छूट के लिए आवेदन देने के लिए इस काउंटर पर आना होगा।" It doesn't have any gendered pronouns, most such instructions don't.

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

#466

Post by PeterisP »

makeitdouble wrote: post #377
alexvitkov wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you plan to only do English forever that's acceptable, but there's _a lot_ of languages where you need to know someone's gender to be able to use their name in a sentence. Weird thing to look over in a thread about internationalization

I'd assume in these languages you can get away with either not using the name, or going for a neutral form (same as when you don't know who you're speaking to) French has that gendered structure too, with workarounds to manage uncertainty.

That assumption isn't valid.

In some languages in order to say anything about anything you have to apply either the masculine or feminine form of the verbs and adjectives, so there's no way around picking one of the two, so if you don't know, you must guess or assume.

And if we look at languages with three grammatical genders, for some of them the neutral option is exclusive to inanimate objects, and using these neutral-gender forms of verbs and adjectives involving any person is explicitly insultingly dehumanizing, you wouldn't even use it to refer to an animal, much less to any person unless you want to make a point of intentionally disrespecting them as "it", saying that they are not worthy to be considered a person. In these languages[1] we do see the neutral gender option applied towards nonbinary and transgender people, but it's done by transphobes as a way of dehumanizing them in conversations.

In such languages usually the proper way to behave if you don't know the gender or if that's a mixed gender group is to default to masculine grammatical gender; because there's no polite way to avoid choosing; and, I might guess that there's also probably some aspect that historical patriarchal social reasons it might have been traditionally considered that misgendering someone male-to-female is more offensive than misgendering someone female-to-male, so that's how that default might have come to be.

[1] edit - I know about some of these languages, I'm not asserting that this applies for all such languages, perhaps there are some of them where the social norms are different, it's very hard to generalize globally.

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

#467

Post by otikik »

vhcr wrote: post #398
makeitdouble wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd assume in these languages you can get away with either not using the name, or going for a neutral form (same as when you don't know who you're speaking to) French has that gendered structure too, with workarounds to manage uncertainty.

There's some push to have gender neutral language in Spanish, but it's pretty controversial.

I would say that all gender-related changes are controversial. Otherwise they would have already happened.

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

#468

Post by TRiG_Ireland »

toast0 wrote: post #402
Hamuko wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't even know that I could put my Bachelor of Engineering degree next to my name, and from what I can tell on the Internet, putting it next to my name would be considered pretentious.

I've got a Bachelor of Science, so I'd be toast0, BS. Which seems appropriate, because putting a title like that feels like BS. It's in Computer Engineering, so I could be toast0, BSCE. But that feels pretentious.

Rincewind the Wizzard, BMgc, Unseen University.

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

#469

Post by TRiG_Ireland »

rsynnott wrote: post #364
smeej wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even this has some culturally confusing elements, doesn't it? For example, in my studies I had cause to read many books by Hans Urs von Balthasar. Nobody ever referred to him as "von Balthasar," just "Balthasar," but his books were always sorted by the "von."

> Nobody ever referred to him as "von Balthasar," just "Balthasar," but his books were always sorted by the "von." I'm pretty sure I've seen a by-name sorting scheme that excludes these sorts of prefixes for alphabetisation purposes. Of course, then you have to second guess whether you are using such a sorting system :)

I believe that the von should be included in sorting in some languages and not in others. It's a Dutch/German difference, though I cannot recall which is which.

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

#470

Post by TRiG_Ireland »

retrac wrote: post #354
hinata08 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France as well I believe that it's mostly the English speaking world that is strict with having "first name" first and "last name" last. It's not an Asian cultural feature to have family name first, but it's an English speaking thing to have it last. OP isn't trying to use his software in Asia specifically. He's just adapting to non US market.

French uses the same convention as English. First then last. No one would ever say, or write, "Macron Emmanuel est le président de la France". In languages like Japanese or Hungarian, that's what family name first means.

If you were writing a letter to him, though, you might put his name on the envelope as MACRON Emmanuel.
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