When I design a personalized page (control panel, cart etc), I need to decide which word to use -- "your cart", "your control panel", "your wish-list" vs. "my cart", "my control panel", "my wish-list".
Which one do you choose and why?
True! If I want to edit *my* profile, I can just as easily find it if the text says just `profile`. Same goes for shopping cart, picture, whatever... Who else's should it be?
Tomas Lycken
2009-09-05 00:16:03
@Tomas I don't know, someone else... probably not me ... since it's not mine :)
chakrit
2009-09-05 00:17:08
On SO, it just shows you your username as a hyperlink... that seems like a nice way to split the diff?
kanamekun
2009-09-05 00:21:56
In the case of the shopping cart, it's my wife's.
Nosredna
2009-09-05 00:24:02
Thank God someone said it.
Jed Smith
2009-09-05 02:21:45
+6
A:
I've always used "my". Saying "your" makes it sound much less personal. From the user's point of view, they're thinking "I want to change my profile... how do I change my picture"
Unless you (the programmer) are a character relevant to them (eg: this is a blog or something) then "my" would always refer to the user.
nickf
2009-09-05 00:08:58
when the user asks "How do I change My profile?", answering them "You can change My Profile by ..." sounds awkward.
janetsmith
2009-09-05 03:48:16
+1
A:
For a long while, websites used mostly "My", ever since it was used by "My Yahoo" - one of the earliest and most popular personalization services. The popularity of "MySpace" only accelerated that trend.
But a growing number of websites are sidestepping the "my versus your" debate entirely. For example, StackOverflow links to your username rather than to "Your Account". In a similar vein, Google calls its personalized page "iGoogle".
This lets you avoid sentences like this, which painfully switch back and forth between "my" and "you": "We've tried to make it easy for you to personalize My Yahoo!, so we've given you a number of different ways to personalize your pages."
kanamekun
2009-09-05 00:20:59
I don't think the StackOverflow solution is all that great. I think people look for the "my." It helps them out.
Nosredna
2009-09-05 00:23:24
+1
A:
my- personal, feels like they own it
your- feels like you (the programmer) is talking to them, feels like it was handed to them, it isn't personal
Matt S.
2009-09-05 01:05:16
I feel almost exactly the opposite way. Windows toys with me by calling it "My Documents" when I'm *forced* into having things put there and having file dialogs open there even though I never use it. It's not mine if I can't delete it, no matter how many times you say it is.
Daniel Straight
2009-09-05 02:26:12
+1
A:
It doesn't matter which one you use, as long as you remain consistent throughout your app. Never switch back and forth between the two; it will be confusing.
vh
2009-09-05 02:19:07
A:
Microsoft and other vendors probably have a bigger research budget than you do, so just follow their lead and figure they did the work. "My" as in "My Sites" in SharePoint?
uosɐſ
2009-09-05 02:24:10