What’s in a name? No, not a product or feature name. Your name. Or mine.
Last year we asked ourselves this question at Instagram when we explored the role of “real” names versus usernames on our platform. We had to make a decision: Should we move away from usernames?
In interrogating what started out as a content design decision, I found myself asking fundamental questions about what it means to represent oneself. The work spanned the practical (Can all users express themselves with a username? How do they affect our interface and how do they localize?) to the philosophical (What does it even mean for a name to be “real”? In what ways is an online identity a simulation of the self?) to the existential (How does this play out in 50 years?). This talk explores how to balance the needs of users, evolving design principles and a product’s identity itself in order to ultimately arrive at an answer to a content design question.
