Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Should error messages apologize? (2013)

ux.stackexchange.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 262 posts

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#31

Post by gary_0 »

bhawks wrote: post #18

Never met an app that could actually feel sorry (maybe someday?). This type of behaviour just feels artificial and inauthentic in most products. If your making an error message effort I'd focus first on being clear, concise and actionable. Try to establish some expectations for the user so they know how and when things will be resolved, ensure you're monitoring and alerting is appropriate to hold yourself accountable…

It depends on the message, but a "Sorry" can set the right tone so a user doesn't feel "yelled at". Omitting the pleasantry might make things seem too terse.

Sorry, your e-mail failed to send.

Your e-mail failed to send.

I much prefer the first one. Software intended for typical end users should have a respectful tone and avoid sounding like it's blaming the user. On the other hand, something like strerror()'s output (eg. "Bad file number") is appropriately terse due to being meant more for programmers.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#33

Post by kragen »

shellac wrote: post #19

> it would be more appropriate to "apologize" for something that would be considered solely the "fault" of the application Is this in part a US vs English difference? I used to work with somebody from Texas who was confused and irritated by the english use of 'sorry' for things they weren't responsible for. In english I suppose we use it out of politeness to express some sympathy, rather than necessarily as an apolog…

the ambiguity exists in us english as well as english english, but i feel that in us english the implied acceptance of responsibility in 'i'm sorry' is somewhat stronger

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#34

Post by bhawks »

vanderZwan wrote: post #21
bhawks wrote: post #18

Never met an app that could actually feel sorry (maybe someday?). This type of behaviour just feels artificial and inauthentic in most products. If your making an error message effort I'd focus first on being clear, concise and actionable. Try to establish some expectations for the user so they know how and when things will be resolved, ensure you're monitoring and alerting is appropriate to hold yourself accountable…

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 attempt to apologize from.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#35

Post by acatnamedjoe »

shellac wrote: post #19

> it would be more appropriate to "apologize" for something that would be considered solely the "fault" of the application Is this in part a US vs English difference? I used to work with somebody from Texas who was confused and irritated by the english use of 'sorry' for things they weren't responsible for. In english I suppose we use it out of politeness to express some sympathy, rather than necessarily as an apolog…

As an English person my first instinct is to add "sorry" to virtually any user-facing text!

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#36

Post by Stratoscope »

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 "hooray!" when I see my inbox is empty.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#37

Post by Angostura »

dataflow wrote: post #16

I actually find these to be irritating if not kind of offensive. (Like the "we are experiencing larger than normal call volume" that literally always plays.) Who exactly is sorry here? The computer? It doesn't (yet?) have feelings. The engineers? They're not telepathic, they have no idea anything just happened to you, let alone feel sorry for it. It seems to be at best a random guess as to how some group of people is…

Clearly the engineers do know that something happened to the user- they are thinking about the circumstances that would have triggered the error message as they wrote the message

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#38

Post by teddyh »

system2 wrote: post #10

IMHO, super users are annoyed by the humanized responses. I don't want to see the error almost teasing me after I tried to accomplish something. Feels condescending. Especially the ones that start with Oops, Oh No etc.

“Can websites please stop the trend of giving error messages that are like "OOPSIE WOOPSIE!! Uwu We made a fucky wucky!! A wittle fucko boingo! The code monkeys at our headquarters are working VEWY HAWD to fix this!" And just give me a fucking error code so I can try and fix it”

— https://twitter.com/cherrikissu/status/972524442600558594?la...>

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#39

Post by rollcat »

I think an appropriate apology should address the overall situation, not a particular event. Say you're loading some data over the network, and it's taking unusually long. You decide to display a message, "sorry that it's taking so long". But what if the user is not even in front of their computer? The intent and effort behind the apology seems wasted.

What if the user was on a fast, but metered connection, and the data loaded very quickly, but wasted half of their monthly data package? How do you intend to apologize if you didn't even bother to call the OS or ask the user if it's OK to start a huge download?

I feel like blanket apologizing in any, except the most clear-cut scenarios, is going to feel excessive in one way or another. If you're just writing an error message, focus your attention on making it more informative instead.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#40

Post by Angostura »

Stratoscope wrote: post #29
noirscape wrote: post #15

Honestly, no. An error message shouldn't apologize. A good error message has the following conditions: * Concise. ("You need to enter a number in this field, not text" = Good, "we're very sorry but we can't understand it if you write your age in text" = Bad). * Clearly telling the user what went wrong without relying on technical jargon. The line number where something went wrong doesn't need to be in an error messag…

> "You need to enter a number in this field, not text" = Good No. Never tell me what I "need to" do. There are any number of ways to get this message across without telling me what I need to do. One example off the top of my head, probably not the best, but certainly an improvement because it doesn't blame me: > This field only accepts numbers For bonus points, put that message next to the field modelessly at the mom…

For even more bonus points, avoid talking about large grassy areas.

Many users will have no clue what a field is.

Post reply on HN