I didn’t get a chance to read all 66 responses so far, however, it seems to me that “Human” could easily replace “user”. I’ve been doing front-end and UX work for just shy of 20 years now myself. To be honest, I don’t have a problem with the word “User”. We used to use the term “End-user” which eventually was just shortened to “User”, and in some cases, I’ve used the word “Customer” when that fits.
Humans are our end-users. I suppose it is possible that the end-user “could” be a machine or an animal or some other entity, however of those choices, humans are the only ones who would have some need/appreciation of their “experience”, so I think it is safe to use the word Human.
If it’s really that much of a conundrum, however, perhaps drop the “User” word altogether and simply leave it at that. You would no longer be a “User Experience Designer”, rather, you’d be an “Experience Designer”, in which case, the human that ends up interacting with your design can define their own existence on their own terms.
“ Saying “user” strips a person of their circumstances, of every influence in their life, of history — it eliminates context and reduces people to a single act.”
Look, I often describe myself as “disgustingly liberal” and so I get your point here entirely, however, I think at some point, we need to stop defending humanity and simply do our jobs. “Who” and “Why” and “How” we design interfaces for things to fit the people that use them is a very important part of the process of this type of designing, however, I think we’re taking ourselves a little too seriously here. We aren’t attempting to label, contain or define our end-users by the terms we use for them, rather, we are attempting to define usable, beautiful, functional and enjoyable interfaces for the situations they are used in and tailored for the people in those situations in order to provide the best possible experience for them while using our products and services.
Who are you to me, for example? The author? The OP? A colleague? A peer? A neighbor? I really don’t know, nor do I care, at least for the purposes of my reply to you. Whoever you are, however, you define yourself, or however I define you, is irrelevant. What is relevant is that I replied to you with the intent of delivering ideas and opinions in a manner that you can understand, appreciate, and take or leave as you see fit. How I define you is largely influenced by how you define yourself. I can tell who you are and what you do and even how you “tick” from reading your words, “hearing” your thoughts, and understanding what you do for a living. What if I took all that knowledge, and decided to call you a “ShmoopyDoopy”? Of course, you’ll never hear that word, and never know I wrote my response to match my ShmoopyDoopy. All you’ll know is that it makes sense to you.
My advice? Concentrate on your end goal and trust your inner Jiminy Cricket to understand and respect your users.
