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Auser is a person who utilizes acomputer ornetworkservice. A user often has auser account and is identified to the system by ausername (oruser name).[a]Some software products provide services to other systems and have no directend users.
End users are the ultimate human users (also referred to asoperators) of a software product. The end user stands in contrast to users who support or maintain the product such assysops,database administrators andcomputer technicians. The term is used to abstract and distinguish those who only use the software from the developers of the system, who enhance the software for end users.[1] Inuser-centered design, it also distinguishes the software operator from the client who pays for its development and otherstakeholders who may not directly use the software, but help establish itsrequirements.[2][3] This abstraction is primarily useful in designing theuser interface, and refers to a relevant subset of characteristics that most expected users would have in common.
In user-centered design,personas are created to represent the types of users. It is sometimes specified for each persona which types of user interfaces it is comfortable with (due to previous experience or the interface's inherent simplicity), and what technical expertise and degree of knowledge it has in specific fields ordisciplines. When few constraints are imposed on the end-user category, especially when designing programs for use by the general public, it is common practice to expect minimal technical expertise or previous training in end users.[4]
Theend-user development discipline blurs the typical distinction between users and developers. It designates activities or techniques in which people who are not professional developers create automated behavior and complex data objects without significant knowledge of a programming language.
Systems whoseactor is another system or asoftware agent have no direct end users.
A user's account allows a user toauthenticate to a system and potentially to receiveauthorization toaccess resources provided by or connected to that system; however, authentication does not imply authorization. To log into an account, a user is typically required toauthenticate oneself with apassword or othercredentials for the purposes ofaccounting,security, logging, andresource management.
Once the user has logged on, the operating system will often use an identifier such as an integer to refer to them, rather than their username, through a process known asidentity correlation. InUnix systems, the username is correlated with auser identifier oruser ID.
Computer systems operate in one of two types based on what kind of users they have:
Each user account on a multi-user system typically has ahome directory, in which to storefiles pertaining exclusively to that user's activities, which is protected from access by other users (though asystem administrator may have access). User accounts often contain a publicuser profile, which contains basic information provided by the account's owner. The files stored in the home directory (and all other directories in the system) have file system permissions which are inspected by theoperating system to determine which users are granted access to read or execute a file, or to store a new file in that directory.
While systems expect most user accounts to be used by only a single person, many systems have a special account intended to allow anyone to use the system, such as the username "anonymous" foranonymous FTP and the username "guest" for a guest account.
OnUnix systems, local user accounts are stored in the file/etc/passwd, while user passwords may be stored at/etc/shadow in itshashed form.[5]
OnMicrosoft Windows, user passwords can be managed within the Credential Manager program.[6][better source needed] The passwords are located in the Windows profile directory.[7]
Various computer operating-systems and applications expect/enforce different rules for the format.
InMicrosoft Windows environments, for example, note the potential use of:[8]
Some usability professionals have expressed their dislike of the term "user" and have proposed changing it.[9]Don Norman stated that "One of the horrible words we use is 'users'. I am on a crusade to get rid of the word 'users'. I would prefer to call them 'people'."[10]
The term "user" may imply lack of the technical expertise required to fully understand how computer systems and software products work.[11]Power users use advanced features of programs, though they are not necessarily capable ofcomputer programming andsystem administration.[12][13]
The down-level logon name format is used to specify adomain and a user account in that domain [...].
