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Yours vs. Mine

dcurt.is

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Re: Yours vs. Mine

#31

Post by Swizec »

acavailhez wrote: post #23

In foreign languages with a polite form of "You" (such as French or German), there is an additional question: should a website use the polite of familiar form. And it's widely accepted that a website should use the polite form.

Is it really widely accepted? I'm still weirded out when people use the polite form. Let alone computers, that's just silly.

Why would a computer/website be polite to me? They have no concept of these things. Just using polite forms doesn't mean you're being polite, you have to mean it. A computer is as of yet incapable of having intentions.

Re: Yours vs. Mine

#32

Post by michaelfeathers »

False choice. I think that the best choice is neither. Unadorned 'Profile' is better than 'My Profile' or 'Your Profile.'

I think there is a decent analog here with unadorned naming being like flat design and my/your being like skeuomorphism.

Re: Yours vs. Mine

#33

Post by tadfisher »

kyro wrote: post #30
tadfisher wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this. Using the example from the article, "Profile" is just as expressive as "My Profile", more concise, and groups better with other similar actions. Taken to its logical extreme, you'll have to put "My" everywhere; imagine GMail with "My Inbox", "My Starred", "My Important Messages", "My Circles", etc.

I think pronouns should be reserved more for interactions, where a UI's personality really shines through. So when refreshing your inbox, you may see "Fetching your email", for example.

Why does a UI have to have personality? Why can't it just look good and be easy to use? Does anyone actually care if an application is "speaking" as if it is a conscious entity?

Re: Yours vs. Mine

#34

Post by po »

acavailhez wrote: post #23

In foreign languages with a polite form of "You" (such as French or German), there is an additional question: should a website use the polite of familiar form. And it's widely accepted that a website should use the polite form.

In Japanese, besides there being a lot of different levels of politeness, using "you" is still considered too direct in general. In conversation, it is to be avoided in almost all cases. It's common to refer to people by name, or by omitting/implying the subject instead of saying 'you'.

There are really interesting problems that you come across when you build multi-lingual interfaces.

Re: Yours vs. Mine

#35

Post by lominming »

In general, I think avoiding either My or Your is better. However, there could be situations in the UI that you may want to separate My Stuff vs Other's Stuff. E.g. a shared folder with a header "My Files" vs "Others". In this case, I think using "My" is stronger. There other other cases like "Your files have been fetched" that sounds more right. I think in general, if you are labeling something, My is ok. If you are communicating a message (e.g. through a notification), Your is better.

Re: Yours vs. Mine

#36

Post by TillE »

acavailhez wrote: post #23

In foreign languages with a polite form of "You" (such as French or German), there is an additional question: should a website use the polite of familiar form. And it's widely accepted that a website should use the polite form.

Lots of German sites use the familiar form, perhaps most notably Apple's. But also IKEA, Qype, my local football club, and various shops.

More business-y sites tend to use the formal "Sie" though, including most ISPs and telecoms.

Re: Yours vs. Mine

#37

Post by astine »

Swizec wrote: post #31
acavailhez wrote: post #23

In foreign languages with a polite form of "You" (such as French or German), there is an additional question: should a website use the polite of familiar form. And it's widely accepted that a website should use the polite form.

Is it really widely accepted? I'm still weirded out when people use the polite form. Let alone computers, that's just silly. Why would a computer/website be polite to me? They have no concept of these things. Just using polite forms doesn't mean you're being polite, you have to mean it. A computer is as of yet incapable of having intentions.

Why would a computer use the familiar form? It seems to me that I would uncomfortable if a computer, or worse, a web interface actively maintained by team of strangers, started to address in language that suggested a certain level of intimacy.

Re: Yours vs. Mine

#38

Post by Swizec »

astine wrote: post #37
Swizec wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really widely accepted? I'm still weirded out when people use the polite form. Let alone computers, that's just silly. Why would a computer/website be polite to me? They have no concept of these things. Just using polite forms doesn't mean you're being polite, you have to mean it. A computer is as of yet incapable of having intentions.

Why would a computer use the familiar form? It seems to me that I would uncomfortable if a computer, or worse, a web interface actively maintained by team of strangers, started to address in language that suggested a certain level of intimacy.

It might just be my youngness and general disapproval of the polite form speaking here. I really think English has gone in the right direction by removing their polite form in favour of being polite without senseless grammatical contortions.

Re: Yours vs. Mine

#39

Post by nwh »

cantlin wrote: post #19

Interfaces and marketing that use "my" always irk me by, for lack of a better phrase, coming on too strong . I'm all too aware of the human hands that typed out that button label - it seems damned impudent of them to be assuming my voice. It implies a certain intimacy. My cart sounds like an appropriate label for something I've filled, but so long as it's empty trying to foist it off as mine just comes across as a de…

> 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. Same goes for interfaces trying to emulate the same thing.

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