Turning Users Into People

Way back in mid May I attended a New York City Usability Professional Association event and learned that it is people - not users - who use web sites. What a revelation, you're thinking.

As it turns out this is a distinction with a difference.

To explain it all were Howard Kaplan of Future Now, Inc.and Todd Follansbee of Web Marketing Resources.

The main point of their talks was that we forget - at great cost - that those who use our web sites (assuming you see web sites as tools) which many do) are people with personas and not users. The latter term has a very negative connotation and when prompted no one in the audience could think of a positive use of the term users."

When you think of users don't you think of druggies, abusers and others engaged in parasitic behavior? I do.

The term causes us to loose focus as to who we are serving. Is our site primarily for senior citizens, stay at home Moms, educators, game players? All of those are people - not users.

I resolved at that point to ditch the term web users." Of course, this leaves me with the serious problem of what to call them but that's exactly the point. They aren't one giant. amalgamated mass. In fact, they're not a mass at all as in mass market. Most of us aren't running google, amazon or ebay. Chances are your site is aimed at specific people and not a bunch of users.

So what should I do about altering one of my favorite admonitions as in, " Put the user in the center of your design." Help me. I don't have an answer for this!!