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When you log in on the site, you have in a sidebar a menu of a user (block; or widget if you are familiar with WordPress) with links to his account settings, his comments, posts, private messages etc.

Which label for a heading would be grammatically more correct?

User menu
----------
-> settings
-> posts
-> messages
-> log out

or 

User's menu
-----------
-> settings
-> posts
-> messages
-> log out

I have asked this question also on English subdomain of stackexchange, but they suggested this subdomain will be more appropriate.

They have proposed names like "User profile", "User Activity", but these do not sound good for a bigger group of menu links like user's posts, comments, profile, settings, friends, logout etc.

What do you think?

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1 Answer

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Does it really need an explicit heading? I would instead reflect that member's identity (e.g. their name and photo) and use that as an implicit heading for those links.

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Yes, because of the design of other bolcks in sidebar. Header is a must! – Derfder Sep 6 '12 at 19:50
Perhaps "Your Account" or "Your [website name]", as well as showing the member name and such. – Matt Obee Sep 6 '12 at 20:17
But it is a menu! Consider e.g. similar thing like "Admin Menu" vs "Admin Account". Admin account sounds like a role not like a menu. – Derfder Sep 6 '12 at 20:20
But I'm not sure why you need to explicitly label a menu with the word "menu". Perhaps I'm missing something in the detail here. – Matt Obee Sep 6 '12 at 20:23
1  
I see, but I think you're tying yourself in linguistic knots with little real benefit to the user. The important thing is that it's easily recognisable as a menu by virtue of its location and appearance and that the links it contains have clear and concise descriptions that make their targets clear. If the menu needs a heading at all, it should describe the purpose of the menu (to access stuff do to with the member’s account) rather than state its function as a “menu”. – Matt Obee Sep 6 '12 at 21:01
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