"My stuff" vs. "Your stuff" in UI texts

Question

When refering to a users stuff should you use My or Your, for example:

My Cart | My Account | My Wishlist

Or

Your Cart | Your Account | Your Wishlist

I found this article that argues for the use of your. It says flikr does this. It also says MySpace and MyYahoo are wrong.

I also noticed today that Amazon uses the term Your. However, I have heard they are the masters at testing variations and finding the best one, so what you see on their site might be the best variation, or simply something they are currently testing.

I personally like the way my looks better, but thats just my opinion.

What do you think? What will hever the better impact on customers? Does it really even matter?

Answer 1

Keep in mind that My or Your can be a component of the branding as with MySpace and not contextual as would be Your Cart or My Cart.

I would ditch both.

Cart Account Wishlist

My and Your are an attempt to bring personalization into the product. IMHO it simply adds un-needed fluff and yet another word spread across a product the brain must process.

If we've learned anything from the successful start-ups over the past few years, it's that simplicity wins. Let's not revert back to over personalization and un-needed verbiage.

Answer 2

Use "My" everywhere.

"Yours" creates a psychological barrier between the site and the user, communicating the message that the user is just a user and is only one of many.

Answer 3

From my experience, using "Your" is better. An article on A List Apart says that "Your" is preferable especially for children.

An article on the Yahoo! developer network makes a good point about the issue:

Labeling stuff with "My" imitates the point of view of the user. It is as if the user has printed out labels and stuck them to various objects: My Lunch, My Desk, My Red Stapler. Except the user hasn't done this; you (the site) did it for them.

Labeling stuff with "Your" instead reinforces the conversational dialogue. It is how another human being might address you when talking about your stuff. Even with MySpace, people say things like "I saw what you put on your MySpace."