Yours vs. Mine • Hacker News Board

Re: Yours vs. Mine

#101

Post by amirmc » Tue, Feb 12, 2013, 5:47 PM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #100

amirmc wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing in the OP refers to A/B testing, Usability testing or in fact any kind of testing. At all.

That's irrelevant. There are multiple reasonable possibilities here. Saying "Do X, now get on with coding" as if X is somehow obviously the right answer is a very dangerous attitude. The original article might not have mentioned those kinds of testing explicitly, but still, professionals decide among various choices being considered based on merit, not personal preference.

I find your comment odd (in that I am confused by it). The top comment (which you seem to take issue with) isn't any more useful to anyone than the OP itself. I took it as a bit tounge-in-cheek. You state that professionals make decisions based on merit rather than personal preference and yet the OP did the exact opposite. So neither the OP nor top-commenter are taking the 'professional' approach here.

FWIW I agree with pretty much everything you said in your previous comment (although perhaps not the first sentence).

EDIT: Or perhaps his last sentence irritated you? If he'd omitted "Now, get back to writing code!" would you still feel the same?

Re: Yours vs. Mine

#102

Post by T-hawk » Tue, Feb 12, 2013, 6:58 PM UTC

Strang wrote: post #99

I know this is only tangentially related, but this has always annoyed me in Windows. For example, "My Pictures" does not contain my pictures. My photos are in c:\photos. And it gets worse with every Windows release. The standard file dialog in Windows 7 is absolutely ridiculous. There is a tree on the left, with absolutely worthless (to me) entries: Desktop, Favorites, Recent Places, My Photos, My Documents, etc., et…

This is because Windows has moved to modern file system organization concepts, keeping data for users within the user accounts and not in the global file space. Why are your photos in c:\photos? Why do you organize your files like it's 1995?

You'll find that that left tree is useful if you flow with the design of Windows rather than fighting against it. Desktop is meant to be an easily visible place for short-term storage of working documents. Recent Places is pretty smart about remembering frequently used local and network locations. My Photos / My Documents are totally useful if you actually put things there like the system is designed to do.

If you insist on drilling down to that hard drive navigation, don't blame the software for yourself deciding to break past the abstraction.

Re: Yours vs. Mine

#103

Post by ahoyhere » Tue, Feb 12, 2013, 8:29 PM UTC

Is it really true that no one here has genuinely studied this question before?

Findings from cognitive science and UI research:

People attribute personalities to everything, including software.

Personalized emails, with a person's name, have higher conversion rates.

One of the ways the brain deals with reading is to pretend, on some level, that it's having an imaginary conversation. Concrete description of objects, use of the active instead of passive tense, questions, and keywords like "You," all improve understanding, attention, and memorability.

It's that simple, guys. The research is out there. It's not hard to find. It's not hard to read, either! Just pick up a couple books on writing/cog sci and subscribe to the ACM and do a quick search of their library once in a while.

Or continue to have an argument based solely on what you feel, as if the data is not out there… that works, too.

Re: Yours vs. Mine

#104

Post by nwh » Wed, Feb 13, 2013, 1:07 AM UTC

trafficlight wrote: post #72

nwh wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think marketeers leveraging "my" tend to envision that we will come to think of their product as like some treasured childhood teddy bear that we hug firmly to our bosoms each night. I'm not sure if it is as pronounced anywhere else, but my area has a lot of shops that use the prefix in their name. My Chemist My Hairdresser My Bookstore My House All places I walk past regularly, and they're all equally as awkward…

Interesting. I don't think this is a thing at all where I live. Where do you live?

Australia. I suspect it's a localised thing.

Re: Yours vs. Mine

#105

Post by Silhouette » Wed, Feb 13, 2013, 2:04 PM UTC

amirmc wrote: post #101

Silhouette wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's irrelevant. There are multiple reasonable possibilities here. Saying "Do X, now get on with coding" as if X is somehow obviously the right answer is a very dangerous attitude. The original article might not have mentioned those kinds of testing explicitly, but still, professionals decide among various choices being considered based on merit, not personal preference.

I find your comment odd (in that I am confused by it). The top comment (which you seem to take issue with) isn't any more useful to anyone than the OP itself. I took it as a bit tounge-in-cheek. You state that professionals make decisions based on merit rather than personal preference and yet the OP did the exact opposite. So neither the OP nor top-commenter are taking the 'professional' approach here. FWIW I agree w…

I think we just interpreted the original comment differently. I didn't sense any humour in the point being made, only in the flippant final line, and I strongly disagreed with the basic point regardless of anything related that the original article did or didn't mention. If I misunderstood then the poster has my apologies.

Re: Yours vs. Mine

#106

Post by Strang » Wed, Feb 13, 2013, 2:20 PM UTC

T-hawk wrote: post #102

Strang wrote: post #99

I know this is only tangentially related, but this has always annoyed me in Windows. For example, "My Pictures" does not contain my pictures. My photos are in c:\photos. And it gets worse with every Windows release. The standard file dialog in Windows 7 is absolutely ridiculous. There is a tree on the left, with absolutely worthless (to me) entries: Desktop, Favorites, Recent Places, My Photos, My Documents, etc., et…

This is because Windows has moved to modern file system organization concepts, keeping data for users within the user accounts and not in the global file space. Why are your photos in c:\photos? Why do you organize your files like it's 1995? You'll find that that left tree is useful if you flow with the design of Windows rather than fighting against it. Desktop is meant to be an easily visible place for short-term st…

Three reasons.

1) They aren't my photos, they are my family's photos. My wife has her own user account and needs just as much access as I do. I'm sure there is some sort of "sharing" solution, but then you lose the convenience of having one location for "My Pictures", so what's the point?

2) C:\photos is a lot easier to type than C:\Users\xxx\Pictures. I much prefer typing to mouse navigation.

3) Windows will actually admit that C:\photos is a directory on a hard drive. If I navigate to "My Pictures", I get some pseudo-directory called Libraries > My Pictures.

Also, are you really so limited that you think there is only One Way to organize files on a hard drive, to the point that you feel the need to mock a stranger for choosing a different location on his hard drive for photos? I expect that snark on anonymous internet forums, but having it embedded in the operating system is another matter.