As a bit of follow-up to my post the other day about “customer service”, Tim Bray has a post about what you call the people you’re writing software for: No More Users.

I just wrote a little piece about how to write software, and it contained a few references to the humans who carry the mobile devices on which the software runs, and who interact with it. I found myself referring to these individuals as “users” or “the user”. Gack; I hate that word.

In fact, I hate it almost as much as the word “content” which, in the Internet-biz context means “Words and pictures and sounds that you create and I monetize.” Anyone who uses the acronym UGC in my presence should prepare for a nasty reaction.

In the comments, the most popular suggestion is “customers”, but you know how I feel about that. (Although it may be a little better for these people, who may actually be selling their software to their customers.) Anyway, most of the people who use things I write are software developers, so I like to call them … wait for it … “developers”. As for the people they’re writing for, how about calling them “students” or “faculty” or “staff”?