I do not like the word “my” anywhere in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Putting on my autistic , very factual, and methodologically empathetic hat on, I prefer a clear line of separation—machines should act as machines, not as personalized companions. I prefer “your” everywhere.

I wanted to do research in HCI a while back, but funding in this area is limited. To me, HCI research felt overly focused on making computer interaction more personable by adding layers of so-called "personalization." Let interaction with machines remain objective, straightforward, and friendly—especially for older people.

This is similar to why I prefer LLM's to behave less human-like and more robotic and machine-like, because they're not humans or human-like, they are robotic and machine-like. The chatbot is not my friend and it can't be my friend, so it shouldn't behave like its trying to be my friend. It should answer my queries and requests with machine-like no-nonsense precision and accuracy, not try to make an emotional connection. Its a tool, not a person.

For the sake of argument -- if you were talking about your real desk to someone, you would say "my desk", no? If you were talking about a document somewhere in your files, you would say "it's in my files". If you were forced to physically label a drawer of your personal documents either "my documents" or "your documents", I think it's safe to say "my" is the more intuitive choice there.

To me, "your" violates the human-machine boundary more than "my" in many circumstances because it implies the machine is its own autonomous being that has its own "my". No, the computer isn't giving me anything; I own the computer, and I own the files, there is no external exchange here.

(all that isn't to say there aren't plenty of cases where "your" makes more sense -- more than where "my" makes sense, by my reckoning, considering how often there is an external exchange of some sort going on. But "your" isn't a one-size-fits-all solution)

So for the example in the article:

> Would you like to share your profile photo?

> Yes, share my profile photo

> No, do not share my profile photo

You'd prefer it says "your" profile photo, instead? Wouldn't that make it sound like I'm sharing someone else's photo?

Overly-anthropomorphised dialog boxes (such as pop-up offers on web sites, not so much on operating system controls) bug me in the same way. Instead of "Yes, please" and "No, thank you" buttons, I would prefer simply "Yes" and "No". I'm giving orders to a machine not talking to a person!

Back when Microsoft released Windows 98, they completely revamped the Explorer UI (made it shittier imho), among other things making folders open with a single click instead of the previous double click. This, their marketing department said, was to make your local computer look and behave more like the Web, and thus be more familiar. The theme of Windows 98 was an OS built for the Web, with smooth integration between local and Web resources.

I was like NO!!! YOU DO NOT WANT THIS!!! The difference between your local computer and the Web is like the difference between your house and St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans during Carnival parade season. My wife may feel "at home" in both, but she stands a good chance of being pickpocketed in one environment; the other, much less so.

I'm with you. We should emphasize a bright-line distinction between interaction with machines and interaction with people. "My Computer" in Windows 9x is okay to me, especially in light of the above; you WANT people to recognize the difference between "my computer" and "someone else's computer". But messages like "Please wait while we set things up" in recent Windows piss me off. What is this "we" shit, kemosabe? Who are you and what are you doing messing around in my computer?

I would claim "Your" doesn't belong either. :) UI should be entirely passively describing things to the user only. Same for technical documentation. E.g. just describe what an option does, don't tell the user what they can or not can do.