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Ask HN: “Backoffice” to mean admin area of a website?

2 points by livatlantis ↗ HN
I have a question. Something that's bothered me for a while.

I work at a web agency work in France. We work in French but often use English words like "wireframes", "benchmark", "reporting" or "responsive".

The admin area of say a Drupal website is usually referred to as the "back office". I find this odd and claimed, admittedly based on anecdotal evidence, that this is a uniquely French usage of this term. Or at least that it's very uncommon in the anglophone world.

I realize that "back office" is common in finance but do people use it in your region to refer to the admin area of a website as well? Have I been been away from an anglophone region for so long that I've somehow missed this?

Please answer with at least a Yes/No and country.

5 comments

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insoluble
I have a client in the US (Illinois) who calls their custom admin panels the "back room" or sometimes "back end". For example, they will say something like "We'll just create the account in the back room". We always work in English. I cannot say I have encountered "back office", but it doesn't sound too awkward. I wouldn't be surprised by an admin panel being called the "back office", although personally I usually use the term "admin panel" since it's quick and less ambiguous.
livatlantis
"Back room" -- I like that! I suppose the general idea is that there's this place somewhere out out "back" where the client can't see it where you administer things.

I usually call it the admin area but I have no idea why I'm bothered by the use of "back office" (English words) in a French language environment, when the term is not too common in English in this context. (Or that's the hypothesis I'm trying to test/challenge).

insoluble
In the physical realm, perhaps the "front office" is where the public visits while the "back office" is where the behind-the-scenes decisions are made. The front office is public relations while the back office is more like administration. These business terms can then be applied to the Internet to distinguish between public-facing and internal-administrative.

Those who grew up thinking digitally are probably more likely to think in terms of internal versus external (or public and private), rather than back and front. At the same time, there is a certain nostalgia to renovating olde terminology in moderne times. "Back room" does have a cozy feeling to it.

MalcolmDiggs
I think I've only heard that term while shopping for a car (the salesmen kept saying he'd have to clear the deal through the "back office")...he was lying...but anyway...

No, in terms of websites/apps, I've never heard that term used. If I encountered that term on a site I would assume that the copywriter wasn't from the US.

payamb
I work at a agency in the UK and like you, I was surprised first when I heard that word, But yeah its an easy word for clients to understand.