Why "gender" should be a text field

Presented at BarCamp Geelong 2011.

Transcript

1. why GENDER should be a TEXT FIELD Brianna identi.ca/pfctdayelise
6. Pros: • Using the wrong pronoun is very jarring • Helps translators • Helps statistics/metrics • Helps advertisers • How dare you disrupt my neat view of the world! My perspective will rule!
7. Cons: • Can alienate potential users
8. Sarah Dopp: I’ll give you a hint: If you’re still asking about race in a required drop-down menu, you’re way behind. Because doing it that way says to a user: • You have a race. • It’s really important to me. • It’s one (and only one) of these listed here.
9. What do you really want to know?
12. More reading • Facebook's decision on gender: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2108918713 • Sarah Mei on Diaspora: http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2010/11/26/disalienatio • Gina Trapani: http://smarterware.org/7388/the-case-against-drop-do • Bagcheck asks for pronouns: http://bagcheck.com/blog/01-the-gender-question • Metafilter on analysing their open field: http://metatalk.metafilter.com/20050/Gender-Go-nuts-