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From a user perspective: would you use store or save on a button after changing your profile data for example.

I mean both make sense but store seems a bit more technical (e.g. storing data to da database). I cannot really find profound arguments for or against one of them.

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I think the term store is too technical for users and does not really correspond to the context whereas the term save is more natural to use.

Behind the word store there is the notion of preserving (to recover it later), stock up on something. In the case of a profil edition the aim is not to store data to retrieve them later. You want to enter informations about yourself to show it, not store them.

Moreover the term save is more safe to use. Behind this word you have the notion of save. You are sure that your data is saved, there is no ambiguity, you modify and save, that's all. It is more explicit than the word store.

I also think in the case of profil edition, the term store is not so good, not confident, not safe. I explain mysel, you imply that your data is stored, but stored where? by who? Who has access to my data? You sell them? and other privacy questions. You are more likely to confuse the user.

However the term store would be interesting in a context of storing elements in the server, cloud or another platform. For instance stock PDF inside Dropbox for retrieve it later.

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  • Tank you Gregory. As I mainly work in German UIs I found this interesting to discuss. For my case I also think that 'save' will be the go-to-term. But as you say: 'store' could be useful in a more technical environment. Nov 11, 2022 at 9:55
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Designing for the user lens, I'd say that you want to pick a verb that most closely aligns to their perspective.

A user will delegate a command to the system, where I think in their mental model they're instructing the system to 'save this so I can retrieve it later'. The system is then tasked with actually 'storing' it to a persistent medium. I can see the same nuance that you already pointed out.

Another thing to keep in mind is their past exposure to similar control labels. From my experience, I think I can safely say that 'save' is the more common label for such operations (have you ever even seen a save button labeled 'store'?).

For both reasons, I'd go with 'save'.

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  • Thanks Ro, as I have seen this also for the first time in a UI which gets its translation from an external ressource I thought this would be an interesting discussion. Our mental-models align and I will definetely recommend 'save'. Nov 11, 2022 at 9:53

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