What is "Yomi name"?

Your question is perfectly reasonable, Brian.  I do expect my UX to be informed by my choice of locale and language. In fact, a lot of people feel that way.

BRIAN TILLMAN's Post (below) alludes to a very important reality, when he mentions the infrequent requirement to "attach a scan of the business card... where needed".

I'm bilingual (English/Japanese), so when I use a computer, it's usually with an English-language Operating System, and sometimes with a Japanese-language Operating System.  When in an English language O/S, but need to input Japanese-language content, I use "language-kit" software to convert standard U.S. QWERTY keyboard keystroke input into Japanese phonetic characters ("kana"), and Japanese-language ideographs ("kanji").  It takes some getting used to, but it works.  In this way, a User who knows the correct phonetic representation of nearly any Japanese word (there are some exceptions, especially certain Proper Nouns), it is possible to receive a drop-down menu that suggests various phonetic (all "kana"), and ideographic ("kanji" or "kanji" + "kana" combinations) available for that QWERTY text-input ("Romaji"-equivalent) and select from among those.  The User must still have passive-vocabulary recognition good enough to correctly select from among the available characters, but eliminates the REQUIREMENT for active-vocabulary competence to WRITE all of the various characters displayed.  The ability to master WRITTEN Japanese is a much more difficult task than to become a competent READER of Japanese.

Tillman mentions having to occasionally scan Japanese bix cards.

Why?  Because sometimes it is not possible to read the Japanese ideographs ("kanji") used.

Sometimes, this is impossible, even for native-speakers of Japanese.

Proper nouns, often used for geography (place names), or for personal identity (surnames), can use obsolete (think "deprecated") phonetic readings and/or written forms of the standard "kanji" set approved by the Japanese authorities for publications, and which are taught in schools.

It is VERY COMMON for Japanese people to have "yomi" characters on their paper biz cards, in order to give the recipient the correct pronunciation of any ideographs ("kanji") which may either have multiple possible standard phonetic pronunciation options, or perhaps an obsolete phonetic pronunciation, with which most folks are generally unfamiliar.

For human communications, people like it when their names are written correctly.

For business communications, it's often important to get client company details (such as company name) exactly correct, with unambiguous precision.

For Japanese names, both ideographs ("kanji"), and the phonetic READING ("yomi") must be considered.  It's my feeling that Microsoft has included the "Yomi" fields as a mechanism to handle this requirement.

My editorial comments here will probably not assuage the frustrations of people who don't need to use "Yomi" features, but it's my hope that they may at least help them understand why they exist, and why they may not be eliminated, unless and until some more elegant solution is proposed and implemented to solve the fundamental requirement.

On our Planet, communication with Japan is a requirement, not an option.

We might as well get used to this fact, become more aware of our surroundings, and this will help us to become more comfortable with ideas, such as "Yomi" fields, which at first appear unneeded, simply because they are unfamiliar.

My $0.02  (A coupla Yen, at current foreign exchange rates...)

Matt

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BRIAN TILLMAN'S Post follows:

My issue with Outlook.com's yomi name UI is a product of two intersecting factors: They are unneeded by the vast majority of Western users (in my estimation), and they appear at the top of the dropdown menu. At the very least they should be moved to the end of the list for users with both a Western locale and language.

Noel made a great point though. America is a giant country with a single postal system, so it's easy to forget that the rest of the world is a much more diverse place. However, I think it's worth noting that most (if not all) of Noel's examples already work with the existing Live Mail address book structure. Nickname, first name, last name, postal code, province... these all take care of those use cases. I put Dutch common names in the nicknames field and drop most Spanish legal first names entirely. And with regard to Icelanders, Noel meant they don't use family names as a surname, even though most of them do use a p/matronymic surname after their given name.

I've never had a need for yomi names in my address book, if only because I can't type the damn things, so I just attach a scan of the business card in the tiny subset of cases where it's needed.

I think I'm pretty world-savvy, having traveled to every continent except Australia and Antarctica (on the bucket list), and speak or understand several languages. I am acutely aware of and sensitive to cultural differences and seem to have the ability to integrate into whatever culture in which I find myself. We watch more foreign-language TV by a huge factor than American TV.All this to say I don't believe I'm very amerigocentric, yet I was not familiar with the term yomi (see my post below in response to Condor1A). So perhaps you're not only being intolerant, but also over-reacting.

I have to agree with Condor1A--it is very confusing. You integrate something into the UI that pertains only to Japanese and those few who do business there, yet provide no explanation as to it's meaning.

I'm fairly well-educated and widely traveled, but thinking I was perhaps behind the times, I Googled the term yomi and got some pretty bizarre definitions in the Urban Dictionary, but nothing that indicated that it was the phonetic equivalent of a Japanese name. There is no entry in dictionary.com. I've been wondering ever since Hotmail transitioned to Outlook.com what the heck those fields were. Finally today I Googled "yomi name" "yomi company" and ended up here.

Bottom line: if your going to include it in the UI, please provide some hover or in-line explanation so people aren't completely in the dark.

Your question is perfectly reasonable, Brian.  I do expect my UX to be informed by my choice of locale and language. In fact, a lot of people feel that way.

My issue with Outlook.com's yomi name UI is a product of two intersecting factors: They are unneeded by the vast majority of Western users (in my estimation), and they appear at the top of the dropdown menu. At the very least they should be moved to the end of the list for users with both a Western locale and language.

Noel made a great point though. America is a giant country with a single postal system, so it's easy to forget that the rest of the world is a much more diverse place. However, I think it's worth noting that most (if not all) of Noel's examples already work with the existing Live Mail address book structure. Nickname, first name, last name, postal code, province... these all take care of those use cases. I put Dutch common names in the nicknames field and drop most Spanish legal first names entirely. And with regard to Icelanders, Noel meant they don't use family names as a surname, even though most of them do use a p/matronymic surname after their given name.

I've never had a need for yomi names in my address book, if only because I can't type the damn things, so I just attach a scan of the business card in the tiny subset of cases where it's needed.