Should error messages apologize? (2013) • Hacker News Board

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#251

Post by Ruthalas » Thu, Feb 08, 2024, 10:53 PM UTC

jodrellblank wrote: post #250

Ruthalas wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

I still disagree with your characterization.

First, it's not that the UI is colorful, it's that many designers seem unwilling to make UIs that are monotone or subdued. That's different from disliking color for whatever reason.

The designer choosing that certain (more monotone) color schemes are not permitted could be conflated with designers making other decisions on behalf of the user, such as assuming the user would prefer fewer options for the sake of simplicity. ("Treating the user as inept")

I don't know what the OP meant exactly, but I still find your 'translation' uncharitable.

I personally like both brightly colored things, as well as more muted color schemes, depending on the situation. I don't personally think colors equate to childishness.

I can however empathize with someone unhappy that their personal aesthetic preference seems underrepresented, and feels that UI designers are making more choices on their behalf than they'd prefer.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#252

Post by jodrellblank » Thu, Feb 08, 2024, 11:57 PM UTC

whynotmaybe wrote: post #160

ohyes wrote: post #148

I like my error messages to eschew anthropomorphisms. Tell me what went wrong so I can figure out how to fix it. I don’t care whose fault it is or how very sorry they are for the mistake. Even saying “the website you are trying to contact is down” can be misleading, maybe it’s not down, maybe I’ve lost my internet connection or the ip changed and dns hasn’t updated, or I have some rule locally that is redirecting me…

You are giving an explanation on my feeling on why the "year of the Linux desktop" won't come. Linux is maintained by power users that want to give the same power to every users but nowadays, the vast majority of users don't need and don't want those powers. I guess you never had to deal with the flow of complaints whenever an update was installed and the icon for the app changed. Many users couldn't start "the appli…

> > I understand that consumer stuff is all about dumbing down the experience so that an idiot can do the thing

> Linux is maintained by power users that want to give the same power to every users

Look at the assumptions behind "UX is dumbing down" and "idiots". Good UX is about making the same power more consistent to waste less of your finite brain power to use it, leaving more free for other things. Good UX is about keeping the same power but making it easier for intelligent people without experience to come in and pick it up and predict how it will work. Good UX is about making the abstractions cleaner and the tools more extensible to allow the same power to be used in more situations. Good UX is about settling the existing tools to allow even more power to be added, or built on top of them, without them collapsing. Good UX is about making the same power lower activation effort to use so you can focus less on setting up the tooling and more on the problem space. Good UX is about making it easier for idiots to use it, but not at the expense of experts. Good UX is about making a problem go away completely so nobody needs any tooling or to waste any time on it.

> "I know that whenever a site "can't be found", it's been blocked by my pihole. But to anyone else connected on my network, it's "the internet is down"."

That's a terrible UX. There's nobody helped by you feeling clever for understanding an inaccurate error message and looking down on people who don't understand it. Putting a clear and accurate error isn't "dumbing down". That's the fear that you would feel dumb if you didn't have to work hard and know secret incantations to achieve results.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#253

Post by schoen » Fri, Feb 09, 2024, 12:48 AM UTC

seabass-labrax wrote: post #248

schoen wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

That's interesting. "Completion" vs. "completing".

I tried this to get all of the dictionary pairs for comparison:

  import re

  german = set(open("/usr/share/dict/ngerman").read().split())
  english = set(open("/usr/share/dict/words").read().split())

  tech_de = "ung"
  gerund_de = "en"

  tech_en = "tion"
  gerund_en = "ting"

  for word in sorted(list(german)):
      if word[0].isupper() and word.endswith(tech_de):
          gerund = re.sub(tech_de + "$", gerund_de, word)
          if gerund in german:
              print(word, gerund)
  
  print()
  
  for word in sorted(list(english)):
      if word[0].islower() and word.endswith(tech_en):
          gerund = re.sub(tech_en + "$", gerund_en, word)
          if gerund in english:
              print(word, gerund)

Unfortunately the English pairs aren't quite complete because the morphological change isn't always simply a matter of s/tion$/ting/, but we get a large number of pairs in each language to look at!

I put a sample output of this up at https://sethschoen.com/gerund-comparison.txt in case anyone wants to look at it (not promising to keep it there forever!). (Note the default character encoding from the web server is wrong so you may have to change encodings manually, or download the file and reopen it, to see German umlaut characters correctly.)

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#254

Post by jodrellblank » Fri, Feb 09, 2024, 5:13 AM UTC

Ruthalas wrote: post #251

jodrellblank wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

I still disagree with your characterization. First, it's not that the UI is colorful, it's that many designers seem unwilling to make UIs that are monotone or subdued. That's different from disliking color for whatever reason. The designer choosing that certain (more monotone) color schemes are not permitted could be conflated with designers making other decisions on behalf of the user, such as assuming the user woul…

> "it's that many designers seem unwilling to make UIs that are monotone or subdued."

That needs some citations. "Dark mode" is the theme du decade. Most things have dark modes or night modes - operating systems, productivity tools, websites, chat programs, game menus, developer tools, browser chrome, mobile and desktop, traditional and apps.

> "The designer choosing that certain (more monotone) color schemes are not permitted could be conflated with designers making other decisions on behalf of the user, such as assuming the user would prefer fewer options for the sake of simplicity. ("Treating the user as inept")"

If you're exhorting me to have a charitable interpretation of the above comments, why aren't you taking a charitable interpretation of the designer's intent? [And why is fewer options connected to 'inept'? Do you feel inferior when there's only one lightswitch in a room instead of 8? Because somehow more options automatically means more competence? In any situation, the amount of possible options is enormous and the amount of useful ones is a tiny part of it; the most likely thing is that more options are acreted by lack of design and kitchen-sink driven development and are useless or time wasting, rather than considered and useful].

> "I don't know what the OP meant exactly, but I still find your 'translation' uncharitable."

> "I don't personally think colors equate to childishness."

Then why are you defending the claim that they do?

[1] as much as I used to

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#255

Post by funcDropShadow » Fri, Feb 09, 2024, 9:44 AM UTC

ragnese wrote: post #136

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 mentioned in another comment that the "apology" and humanization of the error messages doesn't bother me, but I have to admit that the frowny face and the infantilizing messages DOES make me irrationally irritated.

But the emotion of irritation is human. Therefore, mission accomplished.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#256

Post by funcDropShadow » Fri, Feb 09, 2024, 9:52 AM UTC

jodrellblank wrote: post #254

Ruthalas wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still disagree with your characterization. First, it's not that the UI is colorful, it's that many designers seem unwilling to make UIs that are monotone or subdued. That's different from disliking color for whatever reason. The designer choosing that certain (more monotone) color schemes are not permitted could be conflated with designers making other decisions on behalf of the user, such as assuming the user woul…

> " it's that many designers seem unwilling to make UIs that are monotone or subdued. " That needs some citations. "Dark mode" is the theme du decade. Most things have dark modes or night modes - operating systems, productivity tools, websites, chat programs, game menus, developer tools, browser chrome, mobile and desktop, traditional and apps. > " The designer choosing that certain (more monotone) color schemes are…

> > "I don't personally think colors equate to childishness." > >Then why are you defending the claim that they do?

Without wanting to put words into gp's mouth. I assume because he understands that different people have different preferences. And some don't want to get forced into other peoples preferences. Actually, gp said it directly:

> I can however empathize with someone unhappy that their personal aesthetic preference seems underrepresented, and feels that UI designers are making more choices on their behalf than they'd prefer.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#257

Post by funcDropShadow » Fri, Feb 09, 2024, 10:16 AM UTC

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…

If such evasive speech is the cultural norm, then it should be handled in localization. After all it is about adapting a software to local language and preferences. It is not merely running strings through Google Translate.

Taking that evasive speech approach, which is considered polite in one culture, to another culture may very well be rude. I usually consider it rude if some direct question is evaded instead of answered.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#258

Post by funcDropShadow » Fri, Feb 09, 2024, 10:21 AM UTC

jodrellblank wrote: post #252

whynotmaybe wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are giving an explanation on my feeling on why the "year of the Linux desktop" won't come. Linux is maintained by power users that want to give the same power to every users but nowadays, the vast majority of users don't need and don't want those powers. I guess you never had to deal with the flow of complaints whenever an update was installed and the icon for the app changed. Many users couldn't start "the appli…

> > I understand that consumer stuff is all about dumbing down the experience so that an idiot can do the thing > Linux is maintained by power users that want to give the same power to every users Look at the assumptions behind "UX is dumbing down" and "idiots". Good UX is about making the same power more consistent to waste less of your finite brain power to use it, leaving more free for other things. Good UX is abo…

> Good UX is about

Can we agree that whenever you wrote "Good UX _is_ about ..." you actually meant "Good UX _should be_ about ..."? In practice many things that happened in the name of user friendliness did remove a lot of power from the users. Good counter examples not withstanding.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#259

Post by funcDropShadow » Fri, Feb 09, 2024, 10:29 AM UTC

hooby wrote: post #49

I think, error messages should put way more focus on what can be done to make it work - rather than on what went wrong. The user wants to achieve something, and the general job of the software is to help the user achieve their goal. If the goal of the user is to book a flight - then the software throwing an error about the request form not being filled out correctly, basically constitutes a bureaucratic hurdle. "You…

> If the goal of the user is to book a flight - then the software throwing an error about the request form not being filled out correctly, basically constitutes a bureaucratic hurdle.

> "You will not be allowed to book your flight, unless you ask for it in exactly the right way!"

> Sadly, software often has to be bureaucratic about it's input - but that's not actually helpful to the user. So you could argue, when the software rejects the users request because of not meeting bureaucratic demands - the software is failing it's primary job: to help the user.

The booking software could provide a link that preserves the user entered from fields and creates a new session on this booking platform. That way it would reduce the friction created by the error. That is way more helpful than an apologetically phrased error message.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#260

Post by patrick451 » Fri, Feb 09, 2024, 2:26 PM UTC

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…

> he 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 soapbox. It's icky.

But they are reaching into your computer and enacting their will. The passive voice strikes me as even ickier when it is used to amorphously shift blame into the ether. I would much rather read "sorry, we fucked and formatted your harddisk because we suck at programming" than "an error occurred and all your data is gone". Take some damn responsibility.