[tadfisher]

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.

[kyro]

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.

[tadfisher]

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?

[snprbob86]

It depends on the application.

For a tool that you use as often as Gmail, you want something functional, but that doesn't mean it can't let the personality of Google shine through. Gmail's empty spam page says something like "No spam here, Hurray!" where as Outlook's says generic and bland like "There are no items in this view".

However, consider a shopping experience that you may use a couple of times per year at most. The application has a real opportunity to expose the user to your brand.

Also consider a new user experience that you only ever do once. These processes are boring, so maybe some personality helps conversions and reduces falloff.

There is no right answer here because there are so many different types of applications.

[elithrar]

> 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?

I don't think it's fair to say that a UI shouldn't attempt to have some "personality". Whether it is ultimately effective (or not) is another argument entirely, but there is more to UX than just the style and "ease of use".

Copy, labeling and alerts are all part of the UX too.

[olliesaunders]

Good UI design is all about effective communication. If you have a UI that is pretending to be something it isn’t (a person) then it is basically lying to you. That’s hardly good communication. It’s confusing and dishonest.

And believe it or not there are some users who won’t understand that it isn’t really a person. Some minds are very prone to anthropomorphizing especially when they are dealing with something they find hard to understand and unpredictable like a computer.

[jtheory]

"Having a personality" is going to happen whatever you do.

Somewhat counterintuitively, this doesn't mean your interface pretends it's a person; but all copy is written by people -- words are used by people only (pretty much), directly or indirectly -- and the words chosen are projecting some personality onto the application whether you want to or not.

There are no words/phrases/instructions without baggage, connotations, etc..

[olliesaunders]

I have no objection to that. I just don’t want those words written by people to make it sound like the application is a person. The app can talk about itself doing things (it does do things after all) but not as a human being with feelings and stuff.

[schraeds]

Why do most cars still have face-like features when viewed from the front or back?

[Arelius]

Yeah, actually even in that case, I'd prefer no pronouns. "Fetching email" is much better IMO, and possibly more accurate (Imagine my girlfriend logged into my email for instance).

[abstractbill]

Mostly. The downside is with words ("profile" even, though rarely enough that it probably doesn't matter) that can be both nouns and verbs. Leaving off the my/your then makes the button ambiguous.

[andrenotgiant]

Anecdotally, I have run into this with Google Products (Mail & Voice): The "Archive" button is problematic because you can almost always navigate to the noun Archive folder, or verb Archive an item.

[lotharbot]

how about "view archive" and "send to archive"?

[vitalique]

This is the proper approach, I suppose. I don't use images for button labels in Gmail's interface myself, but I'm pretty sure that properly designed icons + tooltips with verbs (for both icons and textual labels) can be used quite effectively to differentiate between verbs and nouns: 'arrows' icons as verbs for moving stuff, 'boxes' images as nouns for storage places, 'tools' as verbs for some particular actions associated with those particular tools, etc. - just your usual common sense UI stuff.

Switched Gmail settings to icons for buttons just to check if this is being used here and immediately notice annoying inconsistency in Gmail's UI: Archive button has an icon of a storage box with an arrow (good choice), but has ambiguous tooltip saying 'Archive', whilst Delete button has an icon of just a trash bin with a proper action-tooltip 'Delete'. 'Report spam' has the worst icon by far, I think. Then again - manila folder icon for moving to label (which is a bit unclear) - it acts very much like the 'archive' action, but somehow doesn't have an arrow. Labels button tooltip - 'Labels' - also lacks the word 'apply/attach/add'. I understand that you can get accustomed to almost anything, but this doesn't mean you have to fight your way through UI.

I thought a bit more about this and now I think that a verb is more or less mandatory for buttons of actions, i.e. for buttons that change some objects properties or performs actions on the objects ('Apply labels', 'Move to trash' are probably better than 'Labels', 'Trash'). Verbs are not mandatory for buttons that just change your position inside the system ('Go to inbox' is probably worse than 'Inbox').

[charliepark]

Rather than the language used, perhaps the interface would give the proper contextual cue:

* Use a button interface for all actions the user can take: [send][archive].

* Use a link for nouns / places the user can go: inbox | archive | trash.

* Icons tend to be actions (a star for 'mark this as a favorite', a trash can for 'delete this thing', a paper+pencil for 'edit this entry'), so they get grouped more with the buttons.

[homosaur]

Oh gravy, tell me about it. I fought at work for two days about taking the "our offices", "our whatever" off all the nav links.