Gender is also useful in generating things like activities and actions in a social context.<div><br></div><div>It can be very awkward — in English at least — when you need to resort to using full pronouns, or "its". </div>
<div><br></div><div>In some cultures, gender isn't represented, or represented consistently in language; still, from a UI perspective, I think it can make for much more friendly interfaces:</div><div><br></div><div>"Pat tagged you in this photo. Look at the rest of her photos."</div>
<div><br></div><div>Etc.</div><div><br></div><div>Chris<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Paul Madsen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:paulmadsen@rogers.com">paulmadsen@rogers.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">thanks Peter, I misinterpreted your earlier msg, in which it appeared you were asking for gender not because you needed to, but because you could (ie. it was in the schema and Yahoo would supply it)<br>
<br>
When you dont have a gender, presumably you fall back on 'Dear Pat Smith' in your salutations .....<br><font color="#888888">
<br>
paul</font><div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
<br>
On 12/15/2009 3:06 PM, Peter Watkins wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 02:27:35PM -0500, Paul Madsen wrote:<br>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
If you dont have a pressing need for the user's gender, why ask for it?<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
Customer service -- it's nice knowing whether to address the individual as<br>
Mr. or Ms. before picking up the phone or drafting a written note.<br>
<br>
Our UI model is to always show individuals what data the OP sent, and always<br>
give each individual the choice of deleting/unsetting the information, so<br>
anyone can choose to have an un-gendered profile.<br>
<br>
Socially I expect there's a risk here of upsetting individuals who do not<br>
identify with either gender, but I would hope that such individuals would<br>
use OPs that, like us, allow them not to declare a gender. It's a good<br>
point, though. We haven't gone through UAT yet, but I should probably change<br>
the unset gender label from "Please select" to "Unspecified" to more clearly<br>
indicate that we don't need the info.<br>
<br>
-Peter<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
On 12/15/2009 12:12 PM, Peter Watkins wrote:<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Gender wouldn't normally be on my list, but since it's in AX Schema and<br>
available from one of our two featured directed identity OPs (Yahoo), we<br>
will be adding that to our user profile model and requesting it from OPs<br>
when our users indicate that we may ask OPs for contact info.<br>
<br>
</blockquote></blockquote>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
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