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Should error messages apologize? (2013)

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Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#241

Post by schoen »

schoen wrote: post #235
seabass-labrax wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed - in German, verbs have: - a gerund form which is always the same as the infinitive, - a different gerund form (verb-'ung', kind of cognate to verb-'ing', both derived from a Latin construct I believe), and - a present participle ...in addition to the other declensions. It's fascinating to me how Dutch and English can be seen as two parallel derivatives of the old High German language, where as what we now cal…

I don't know enough German to be sure of a rule about when the -ung form does and doesn't occur, but I can think of verbs that don't have it (confirmed with grep!), so it's not completely productive. (First examples offhand: essen, haben, denken, gehen, although the latter does seem to do -ung with some prefixes.) It's also interesting to think of how to describe the semantic difference between the -en and -ung nouns…

Wiktionary seems to agree with my guess about the meaning of -ung:

> forms nouns from verbs, usually describing either an event in which an action is carried out, or the result of that action.

> Note that the -ung suffixed form is different from the gerund which is formed by simply capitalizing the first letter of the verb. The gerund usually refers to the activity in general rather than a specific instance or result.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#242

Post by bemusedthrow75 »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #224
bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The automated railway announcements in the UK say "I'm sorry". Rubs me up the wrong way, because there would be no way to identify who the individual apologising is. However, I think error messages should apologise in the rare situation that there is no constructive, helpful, language-neutral way to convey an actionable response in an error.

Do they? I've just spent most of today on the railways, as it happens, but I didn't hear that despite some disruption; indeed I've never heard it. During my journey today, the Eurostar staff apologised over the tannoy personally, and the Great Western train manager personally announced a delay with great enthusiasm on a recent trip ("we are running three minutes behind schedule; we apologise for any inconvenience or…

It may have changed recently but it was a feature of on-station announcements (as opposed to on-train) in the south east for years.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#243

Post by Too »

Stratoscope wrote: post #36
bjackman wrote: post #24

I think prefixing with "sorry," is a good idea but I really hate cutesy error messages. I feel the Chrome dinosaur kicked those off, and I do (did?) like the dino. But "it's not you, it's us" is very annoying. "We made a booboo UwU". When something has gone wrong I really don't want to feel I'm being marketed to, I just want information!

One of the worst - I don't know if it's still there - was a Gmail message something like "Hooray! Your inbox is empty." Well that's great if you worship Inbox Zero. But what about me? Maybe I'm anxiously waiting for news on a family member's illness and hospitalization. Maybe I'm waiting for my lawyer to get back to me on an important case. It's not hard to imagine any number of circumstances where I would not say "h…

I believe the hooray is only presented that way in the spam folder.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#244

Post by 8organicbits »

digging wrote: post #195
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 mo…

> 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

It was confusing to me as well. But I am left wondering, is the directness of software frustrating people who culturally prefer indirect communication. I haven't seen anyone weigh in on that yet.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#245

Post by inglor_cz »

tail_exchange wrote: post #226
inglor_cz wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

404-like errors can well be caused by you doing Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V incorrectly, or some third person messing up a link. I am not sure if the additional complexity that would stem from teasing those scenarios apart and serving them with different messages is worth it.

Just one saying "image not found" is sufficient. Not only it's sufficient, but it's also not patronizing when users didn't do anything wrong.

True. Brevity works better.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#246

Post by Ruthalas »

lolinder wrote: post #239
buttercraft wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a very uncharitable interpretation of that comment. Nowhere did they state that seeing colors makes them feel like a baby. Nor did they say everything should be monochrome. Is it so surprising that people expect tools they use for business to look and act professionally?

> Nowhere did they state that seeing colors makes them feel like a baby. Actually, that was a pretty reasonable translation of this line into low-brow speech: > a broader, ongoing software infantilization process. Colors can't be sober either, everything has to be colorful, cheerful The connection between these sentences is fairly clear: software is being infantilized and part of that is that everything has to be col…

For what it's worth, my 'translation' would be, "The strong aversion to less colorful designs seems childish, and may go hand in hand with designs that treat the user as inept. I don't like being treated as inept or incapable."

Seems both more likely and more charitable.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#247

Post by [deleted] »

bhawks wrote: post #34
vanderZwan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The app didn't write the error message, the people implementing the app did. Any error message is just as much a form of communication between them and me as it is between the app and me.

Is it possible to apologize in advance? For me an apology requires one party listen and understand the problem the other party experienced. They then convey that understanding back to the other party along with taking some amending action. The author of the error message is communicating in a unidirectional manner to the the receiver with limited context of the overall interaction. That is a difficult scenario to att…

[deleted]

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#248

Post by seabass-labrax »

schoen wrote: post #241
schoen wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know enough German to be sure of a rule about when the -ung form does and doesn't occur, but I can think of verbs that don't have it (confirmed with grep!), so it's not completely productive. (First examples offhand: essen, haben, denken, gehen, although the latter does seem to do -ung with some prefixes.) It's also interesting to think of how to describe the semantic difference between the -en and -ung nouns…

Wiktionary seems to agree with my guess about the meaning of -ung: > forms nouns from verbs, usually describing either an event in which an action is carried out, or the result of that action. > Note that the -ung suffixed form is different from the gerund which is formed by simply capitalizing the first letter of the verb. The gerund usually refers to the activity in general rather than a specific instance or result…

The -ung words also feel slightly more technical to me. When you read laws, for instance, there are quite a lot of 'ungs', more so perhaps than in colloquial writing. Maybe that is because, as you put it, "completing the action of the verb" has a more abstract meaning that referring to a specific act. In English, it feels to me like we too would (in laws, for instance) be more wont to use the '-tion' form of a verb rather than the '-ing' gerund. Perhaps also that, the longer the word, the more technical it feels in any language :)

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#249

Post by seabass-labrax »

bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #242
seabass-labrax wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they? I've just spent most of today on the railways, as it happens, but I didn't hear that despite some disruption; indeed I've never heard it. During my journey today, the Eurostar staff apologised over the tannoy personally, and the Great Western train manager personally announced a delay with great enthusiasm on a recent trip ("we are running three minutes behind schedule; we apologise for any inconvenience or…

It may have changed recently but it was a feature of on-station announcements (as opposed to on-train) in the south east for years.

Interesting; thank you for responding. I tend to keep my connections somewhat unreasonably short, so maybe I just don't wait around long enough to hear that announcement :)

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#250

Post by jodrellblank »

Ruthalas wrote: post #246
lolinder wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nowhere did they state that seeing colors makes them feel like a baby. Actually, that was a pretty reasonable translation of this line into low-brow speech: > a broader, ongoing software infantilization process. Colors can't be sober either, everything has to be colorful, cheerful The connection between these sentences is fairly clear: software is being infantilized and part of that is that everything has to be col…

For what it's worth, my 'translation' would be, "The strong aversion to less colorful designs seems childish, and may go hand in hand with designs that treat the user as inept. I don't like being treated as inept or incapable." Seems both more likely and more charitable.

That's the same thing; "the aversion to less colourful designs seems childish" - no it doesn't. When the Queen of England wore pink, did you say "her aversion to less colourful clothes makes her seem like a child"? When someone buys a red Ferrari do you think they didn't buy a muted gray Ferrari because they seem childish? When a builder drives a yellow JCB do you think they wish for a gray bulldozer because colour is for infants? When Michaelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel do you think it was in a fit of infantile pique that he didn't make it monochrome? When a doctor recommends you eat a rainbow coloured meal of veg, do you think that seems more or less childish than only eating beige mashed potatoes and white fish? When a street sign says 'no entry' do you think the red border makes it look more childish than a black border? When someone has a blue can opener is that more childish than a metal can opener?

> "may go hand in hand with designs that treat the user as inept"

May, may not. Is orthogonal to.

> "I don't like being treated as inept or incapable."

What a chain of reasoning. "I don't like being treated as inept (fine), so to remind myself how capable I am I need to not look at colours otherwise I will fantasize that other people are laughing at me (not fine)".

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