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Should error messages apologize? (2013)

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Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#191

Post by grraaaaahhh »

dpassens wrote: post #181
retrac wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A similar effect: the imperative (giving orders). It is nearly as taboo in English, to just use the imperative, as it is in Japan. For example, if you have a dinner guest, you will ask "Would you like some more? Could you pass the salt?" It's always very indirect, put as a request that may be refused, or a suggestion. In other cultures, it may just be the bare imperative - "Eat more! Give me the salt." - and this is…

Is "Would you like some more?" really a good example here? It's not really implying that the person asked ought to eat more, is it?

It certainly can. For instance, when the speaker is my mother.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#192

Post by zinodaur »

The thing that ticks me off is when a website has a cutesy patronizing tone in its error message, and it was them that messed up.

"Ooopsie! Looks like you clicked on a picture that doesn't exist!" Instead of "We fucked up and served you an invalid link"

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#193

Post by quatrefoil »

wseqyrku wrote: post #151
hbn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame Google for popularizing that. Honestly it was fine enough for a YouTube error, "we couldn't find that video." But then everyone started copying it, including Microsoft who, in Windows 8, updated the blue screen of death to have a "whoopsie poopsie! Your computer has a widdle boo boo!" type message, accented with a :( sad face emoticon. Which I can guarantee was presented to countless people who lost real work…

I've seen this one from Google which is kind of peculiar. Your client does not have permission to get URL / from this server. _That’s all we know._

Yeah, that one was always a bit weird because it's essentially a lie: no, you know more. You're not telling me and that's fine, but come on.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#194

Post by jerbear4328 »

photochemsyn wrote: post #172
rogual wrote: post #66

I don't even like "We" in UI messages. "We couldn't find that site." "We're just updating your computer." Perhaps I'm just an old fogey, but passive voice feels like the only right choice: "The site could not be found." "Your computer is being updated." The insertion of "We" feels like an imposition; the company who wrote the code reaching in and enacting their will with your equipment, using your screen as their soa…

I like the idea of haiku error messages (as in Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett's Good Omens). "Site not found" becomes, with some LLM assistance: Amidst cyberspace vast, Site elusive, lost in void, Unreachable code.

That isn't a valid haiku, and it's much less clear, in my opinion. If you give me a nice big "404 Not Found" up front and then include a poem, HTTP cat, or easter egg, that would give the page personality while still being immediately useful.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#195

Post by digging »

8organicbits wrote: post #43

I suspect there are cultural preferences here, there's no reason to believe there's one correct answer for all of humanity. I'm from the US but I've traveled to places where it's considered rude to say "no" directly and apologies aren't common. Like when trying to order an unavailable item from a menu: - I'd like the beef burger - The chicken burger is very good - That's OK, can I have the beef burger? - Our hot dogs…

There's also, "[Sorry,] we're out of the beef burger. The chicken is very good though." This maximizes useful information.

While I understand it "just works" in those cultures, simply redirecting while avoiding a negative response is one of those things that only works in a cultural context where it's expected... to me, it would be pretty confusing. I don't think that's because my culture promotes directness, but more that I lack the cultural background of expecting avoidance.

Autistic people in those cultures must have a pretty tough time.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#196

Post by causi »

hbn wrote: post #109
rogual wrote: post #66

I don't even like "We" in UI messages. "We couldn't find that site." "We're just updating your computer." Perhaps I'm just an old fogey, but passive voice feels like the only right choice: "The site could not be found." "Your computer is being updated." The insertion of "We" feels like an imposition; the company who wrote the code reaching in and enacting their will with your equipment, using your screen as their soa…

I blame Google for popularizing that. Honestly it was fine enough for a YouTube error, "we couldn't find that video." But then everyone started copying it, including Microsoft who, in Windows 8, updated the blue screen of death to have a "whoopsie poopsie! Your computer has a widdle boo boo!" type message, accented with a :( sad face emoticon. Which I can guarantee was presented to countless people who lost real work…

I threw all my Google Home's into the trash after I told one to "shut the hell up!" and it started shaming me about being rude to it.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#197

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

They say that in writing, passive voice is weak. There is something to this statement. Arguably, computers are exempted from avoiding it on account of their lack of personhood. But imagine that you need to come up with messages that avoid passive voice, acknowledge the user's agency, and don't personify the computer. I tried to play this game and came to the conclusion that computers should literally say No to fit these requirements.

"No. Your email won't be sent. The mail server at smtp.somewhere rejected the message."

"No. Whatever is in your address bar does not exist on this site."

"No. The update package file has a checksum mismatch, and the system will not apply it."

"No. The remote server dropped the network connection, leaving the update file only partly downloaded. The system has already retried the download 10 times and failed, so you will need to rerun the update."

"No. This program is compiled for a different kind of computer and won't run here."

"No. This is not a document file. You need to open it with another program."

"No. You supplied an incorrect username or password."

"No. You are trying to open a file too large to fit in the memory."

"No. Your form is missing required fields X, Y, and Z. Please fill them out before submitting."

"No. Your request encountered an internal error. Someone in charge of servers will eventually notice it."

"No. Just leave. Touch grass."

"No."

"NO!"

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#198

Post by Macha »

lainga wrote: post #133
kinj28 wrote: post #115

Completely tangent here but back in 2005 one of the early programs me and my cofounder wrote included a try catch which spitted out something like variable not found. We were just out of college and didn’t really pay much heed to the possibility of our code ever getting into the catch. And one of us had the variable christened as “baby”. Code went into production and one of user got the error message “baby not found”…

Reminds me of the panicked woman who hit F12 while on FB, saw the log message "forcing children into a div", and concluded she had discovered evidence of child abuse. I believe this was before FB printed the big ASCII art "STOP!" message to console.

Back when we first got a computer, my mother was highly concerned by the Windows 9x error message "Your computer has performed an illegal operation and must shut down"

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#199

Post by hbn »

marcosdumay wrote: post #171
hbn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame Google for popularizing that. Honestly it was fine enough for a YouTube error, "we couldn't find that video." But then everyone started copying it, including Microsoft who, in Windows 8, updated the blue screen of death to have a "whoopsie poopsie! Your computer has a widdle boo boo!" type message, accented with a :( sad face emoticon. Which I can guarantee was presented to countless people who lost real work…

It's perfectly fine to use "we" in a message on a web site. It's not fine on local software.

Windows may as well be considered a web service at this point!

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#200

Post by kevincox »

yonatan8070 wrote: post #185
8organicbits wrote: post #43

I suspect there are cultural preferences here, there's no reason to believe there's one correct answer for all of humanity. I'm from the US but I've traveled to places where it's considered rude to say "no" directly and apologies aren't common. Like when trying to order an unavailable item from a menu: - I'd like the beef burger - The chicken burger is very good - That's OK, can I have the beef burger? - Our hot dogs…

I really don't want my software to be polite, I think that many Linux CLI tools do a good job with this: cat: /etc/whatever: No such file or directory No nonesense, no politeness, just the pure, searchable error. I've noticed that some MS CLI tools do the exact opposite, and print out an entire paragraph to say something very simple, gpupdate comes to mind, spitting this out if the domain is unreachable: The processi…

For something as simple as cat that may work fine. But that message actually fails to say why it failed. It just gives you a fact that is presumably related to the exit code. In fact it doesn't even say it failed at all!, if your shell doesn't show the exit code you may read this as a warning or other non-critical information..

While it is hard to argue with succinctness of an error from such a simple program it may be better to say something like:

    Fatal error: Couldn't open /etc/whatever. No such file or directory.
This says:

1. What failed. (Couldn't open /etc/whatever)

2. Why it failed. (No such file or directory)

3. How this was handled (Fatal)

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