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

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

#331

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 1:19 PM UTC

qwytw wrote: post #235

throwaway2037 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I here this trope so much. It is tiring and closed-minded. Are you Western culture and male? Probably. I have seen whole blog posts dedicated to this matter. Really? This matter is so stressful that people need to write 100s of words about it? Sheesh. Are you aware that it is polite to start a convo with people from South Asia with a small greeting? They wait for you to ack. If you don't ack, they will not continue.…

> They wait for you to ack. If you don't ack, they will not continue Which is possibly one of the (admittedly probably very minor) reasons why they were left so far behind economically. Focusing on form over function in communication can be very counterproductive. Not that I'm saying that saying "Hello, how are you?" to someone is waste of time. However certain people/cultures really go overboard with this and expect…

[deleted]

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

#332

Post by Semiapies » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 1:23 PM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #307

zamalek wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Just have a single "name field" and maybe preferred name, which is not the same." > This is the way to go. Agreed. Does anyone know of any reason to care about first/last, apart from it being part of My First SQL Database and sating our inner desire to create pointless taxonomies?

Sorting. Though I don't think there's a culture-agnostic way to do this, either.

Not universally, no. The closest for English-language use is to put a spurious comma between family and given name (e.g., "Cixin, Liu" for Cixin Liu).

In an ebook management system I've been developing, I use a full_name and a sort_name field for authors/editors/contributors, because books are a reasonable thing to want to sort by author names.

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

#333

Post by isametry » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 1:24 PM UTC

richie_adler wrote: post #286

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't say hello, just state your business.

Thank you! Mandatory reference to nohello.net/en/

Clickable: https://nohello.net/

Clickable English: https://nohello.net/en/

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

#334

Post by weinzierl » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 1:27 PM UTC

usrusr wrote: post #276

weinzierl wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just have a single "name field" and maybe preferred name, which is not the same." This is the way to go. "The family/given name format doesn't make much sense here." It doesn't make much sense in many places all over the world. In Germany technically speaking our given names are a set and we can have many of them. While it is practically necessary to write them out in a certain order in our documents, from a legal s…

Germany used to be extremely restrictive about the set of character sequences that were allowed as given names. Some of that is probably still in place. When everybody was called Fritz or Hans or Gundula plus some word describing an ancestor's profession (it's all following the pattern of Smith and Miller), the order didn't really matter and that freedom was liberally abused: contexts that use the formal as identifie…

When I was a child in Bavaria I was often called by house name + given name, in that order, especially by the elderly. The house name is different from the family name which appears in official documents like the birth certificate.

Another difference between northern and southern Germany is the Münchner-Du and the Hamburger-Sie. In standard German we use the formal pronoun Sie with the last name in formal situations and the informal pronoun Du with the given name in informal situations. Nowadays in semi-formal situations, like between colleagues at work, it's completely informal but two or three decades ago it wasn't. Officially the workplace was supposed to be formal and often it was, but in many cases a mixture between formal and informal forms was common.

In the north people tended to use the formal Sie but in conjunction with the given name, like Markus, können sie bitte das Auto holen." (Marcus, can thee get the car, please.), whereas in Bavaria the opposite combination of informal Du combined with the family name was prevalent, like *"Du, Frau Müller, kannst Du bitte das Auto holen." (You, Mrs. Miller, can you get the car please.)

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

#335

Post by ghaff » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 1:27 PM UTC

johneth wrote: post #247

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…

>> "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 of honorifics.

When I last registered for some conference put on by The Economist, it must have had 25 titles to choose from including a whole bunch of aristocratic and clergy-related titles.

Seems a lot easier just not to bother today.

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

#336

Post by Hamuko » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 1:34 PM UTC

johneth wrote: post #247

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…

Title is the one that always confuses me since titles are basically non-existent here. It seems really like a really important thing in the Anglosphere and I have no idea why. I just always pick "Dr" when I'm forced to pick one. So far it has never made any difference.

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

#337

Post by Tainnor » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 1:35 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #335

johneth wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>> "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…

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.

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

#338

Post by onionisafruit » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 1:37 PM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #236

IanCal wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A simple, unimportant one: how do you politely address the person? This is I think solved with asking how people want to be addressed. It also helps deal with situations where someone's legal name isn't how they are usually referred to.

It was a bit trickier in my case because it was an English tool to fill a German form. There was the awkward issue of "Frau Dr." and "Herr Dr." being the same thing in the English dropdown. The other issue is that the full name is used in the address, but only the last name in the greeting. There are no apartment numbers in Germany, so the name in the address must match the name on the mailbox. There can also be a lo…

Having not been in this position myself, my instinct is to drop the greeting line in emails altogether. I’m sure you considered that and had a good reason not to drop it.

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

#339

Post by numpad0 » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 1:38 PM UTC

skissane wrote: post #277

pmontra wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In way you are right. From the global point of view the exceptional case is the American one, Name Middle Family. It's about 330 M people vs 8 billions, 4%, which is less than 10%. But then you add the exceptional cases for every country or culture. From the other comments we already know that even in Western Europe there are many differences. So if you sum all those exceptional cases you get the 100% of the world po…

> From the global point of view the exceptional case is the American one, Name Middle Family. That’s not really “American”. Most other Anglophone countries are mostly the same. Maybe it should be called “Anglophone” not “American”? To a certain extent, even “West European” There are some subtle differences - my impression is the US is more accepting of generational suffixes (Jr, III, etc) than Australia is, for insta…

> Most other Anglophone countries are mostly the same.

I don't have any French or German or Polish friends to verify but this is so demonstably false just by reading some of comments here. Name Middle Family is clearly at most American.

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

#340

Post by Tainnor » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 1:40 PM UTC

zamalek wrote: post #284

weinzierl wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just have a single "name field" and maybe preferred name, which is not the same." This is the way to go. "The family/given name format doesn't make much sense here." It doesn't make much sense in many places all over the world. In Germany technically speaking our given names are a set and we can have many of them. While it is practically necessary to write them out in a certain order in our documents, from a legal s…

> "Just have a single "name field" and maybe preferred name, which is not the same." > This is the way to go. Agreed. Does anyone know of any reason to care about first/last, apart from it being part of My First SQL Database and sating our inner desire to create pointless taxonomies?

For one thing, delivery drivers and similar can get confused if they don't know which part of the name they should expect on the doorbell... (especially if both parts of your name are uncommon)

I don't think there's an easy fix to this. Not everyone has a first and a last name, but in many places, cultural conventions (or legal practice) assume that you do.