user
A person who uses something. It could be someone on a website, a customer, a member, or anyone interacting with a product or service.
What a model may hear
- account identity operating systems and databases
- treat as a login name with permissions, passwords, and access controls
- end consumer product management and UX design
- assume the person has limited technical skill and needs simplified interfaces
- function argument programming (especially Python decorators and dependency injection)
- inject a user object or require a user parameter in code
- table or schema databases and ORMs
- query a users table with fields like user_id, username, created_at
- license metric software pricing
- count as a billable seat or named individual for subscription limits
Where people and models part ways
“Delete the user”
Meant: Remove this person's account and data from our service
May be taken as: Drop a database table called users or cascade-delete related records unexpectedly
Say instead: “Delete this person's account and all their personal data from our platform”
“The user wants it”
Meant: Our customer requested this feature
May be taken as: Assume the request comes from a specific system account or default user profile
Say instead: “Our customer requested this feature”
“User is broken”
Meant: A person cannot log in or access the site
May be taken as: Interpret as corrupted user data in a database or malformed user object in code
Say instead: “A customer cannot log in to their account”
“Add a user”
Meant: Create an account for a new team member
May be taken as: Insert a minimal row into a users table without validation or onboarding steps
Say instead: “Create a new team member account with full profile setup and welcome email”
Tips
- Say 'customer,' 'team member,' or 'account holder' when you mean a person, not a system record
- Specify 'database user' or 'system account' when you mean the technical identity
- Mention the service or platform name to ground the model in context
- Avoid 'the user' as a generic subject; name the role or relationship
- When asking about permissions, say 'what can this person do' not 'user permissions'
Often confused with
- customer
- implies a paying or commercial relationship, not just any account
- account
- emphasizes the record and credentials, not the living person
- member
- suggests belonging to a group or organization with shared access
- client
- in software, often means a program or device, not a person
- principal
- a security identity that can be a person, service, or machine alike
- subject
- in identity systems, any entity that can be authenticated, broader than human