I want to put a link to an account page in a toolbar. What person should I use to refer to the user's settings? Should I call it 'My Account' or 'Your Account'? I've seen both is use, and I'm not sure which one is correct, or even better.
Answer
In addition to the related posts that JonW, called attention to, I think the biggest question to answer is using 'My' vs. 'Your'. We've had a previous question on the subject ("'Your' vs 'My' in user interfaces"), which is a great resource, but my favorite resource on the matter is the Yahoo Design Pattern Library.
Yahoo advises to use 'Your' as the pronoun in most cases, or consider sidestepping the issue entirely ("Bill's Recommendations", for instance). The logic of creating a dialog is pretty sound, in my opinion:
Objects labeled "My" on behalf of a user by the system can give the feeling of an impersonal, if helpful, robotic valet or assistant, generically identifying items as if by proxy. This mode of nomenclature works just fine for private, individual environments. If a site has the feel of a bathroom cabinet or sock drawer, then calling items My Toothpaste or My Socks suits the solipsistic environment just fine.
However, in a social site, we want to avoid the call of introversion and instead encourage our participants to open themselves up to the possibility of conversation, both with their co-denizens of the site and with the site (or rather the people behind the site) itself.
Hence, we use "Your" to engage the social mind in a dialogue. A human being, even perhaps a live assistant or valet, might say, "I bought you your favorite toothpaste," or "Here are your socks."
So, to answer your question, I would go with either "Your Account" or possibly even "Dan's Account".
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