I'm quite attached to my name. I've had it for as long as I can remember and I don't tend to respond if people call me something different. A name is a powerful thing. It can shape how we perceive someone or something and it subconsciously colours our behaviour. Ever laughed when you've read a job title like 'refuse disposal engineer' and thought doesn't that mean 'bin man'? Now think how you would react if someone got your own job title wrong. We tend to be fiercely protective over even the subtlest of distinctions when it comes to naming, as even the smallest of variations can make a big difference in how we are perceived by our peers and ultimately how people treat us.
It's no different when you're talking about people who interact with your website or any other of your marketing materials. The debate over what we call these groups rages on and yet we don't seem to be much closer to coming up with a catch-all term that suits. But then that's the problem with catch-all terms. The ones that manage to group everyone together tend to be so generic that we lose all of the subtle nuances within the group that are so important when you're trying to design or build something effective.
'User' seems to be the most popular and most understood term in use at the moment, but it doesn't tell us much other than the person that it refers to uses the site. As an Information Architect, one of my first questions would be along the lines of 'why do they use the site?' Part of the role of the IA is profiling the types of people who use a website and what they use it for. Are they using the site to find information, to buy something, to make a booking? Once we have got this information we can begin to look at how they use the site, but we can also start to think about the terms that we use to refer to the people who are using the site.
If your website's primary function is to sell products or services then referring to your target audience as 'customers' will focus your thinking around how you should be interacting with this group. Similarly, if your website is aimed at attracting new business then 'clients' may be a better way of referring to the people who you are directing your content at.
It may seem like a pointless exercise but consider the implications that each term carries with it. 'Customer' and 'client' have a set of behaviours, attitudes and approaches associated with them that are hard-wired into our consciousness. If we agree that 'the user is king', and that the design and content of a site should be geared around their needs and requirements (in such a way that satisfies your own business requirements), then understanding what type of user you are dealing with will enable you to target your audience in a much more effective way.
There is a school of thought that says that we should even take the next step and apply this thinking to the processes around websites. As audio and video content becomes more commonplace in websites, should we refer to the people who interact with our sites as readers, viewers or listeners? This would certainly mean that we are beginning to think about the 'how' as well as the 'who' aspect.
Send us your opinion on this by email to: ideas@fsnm.co.uk.