---
id: terminology
title: Terminology
---

The purpose of this document is to define terminology used through this
documentation.

## End-User

The person who actually uses a particular product that uses Ory Kratos.

## Identity

the "who" of a software system. It can be a customer, employee, user,
contractor, or even a programmatic identity such as an IoT device, application,
or some other type of "robot."

Common aliases are "user", "user account", "account", "subject".

## Self-Service

Interfaces and flows allowing customers to produce services independent of
involvement of direct service employee.

You perform self-service registration when signing up for a new Google account,
because no one (e.g. support) else is involved in the process.
