Something’s wrong. The error message appears. Odds are good that you don’t read it, and instead just click whichever button you’re used to clicking. O how wrong that is!
I admit to this mistake myself, but I see it a lot in my kids. Whenever I help them with a problem, they plow through an error message like a Californian obeys a Stop sign.
Thwoosh! That’s the sound of an error message window flying by. What did it say? Who cares! On to the next step!
The programmers are most likely to blame for this situation. Traditionally, the computer error message is next-to-useless.
I remember on my old Mac, getting an Error -2. What the hell was that all about? The -2 didn’t help you recognize anything, and there was no manual that listed all the error messages, what they meant, and how to deal with them.
The PC is ever worse, but in the other direction: DOS error messages were verbose and cryptic. Error L891-A: Franistat duplicator overflow.
What does that mean? How did it happen? Is something wrong? Was it something I did?
Error messages are often irrelevant, as computer history shows. Even if you have a reference to the number, the meaning is utterly lost. That’s because error messages are often written by the programmer for the programmer.
As computers became more user-friendly, some of the error messages changed. Sometimes the error message was kind of useful. It might explain what went wrong, but not what to do next. Or it might explain what to do next, but not what went wrong.
Well, at least they were trying.
A recent question on the Slashdot nerd news site asked whether anyone could explain why users typically dismiss error messages without reading them. The person posing the question pointed out that often error messages hold meaning and are important. Yet, for some reason, people dismiss them and keep moving on without even regarding what all that error message text said in the first place.
I can’t verify any of what I wrote in the previous paragraph because I also immediately dismiss most error messages when I get them.
Microsoft tried to focus your attention with Windows Vista’s obnoxious UAC warnings. The screen would dim. A beep would sound. Then you would immediately ignore the warning’s message as well as its color code, to click the Allow button. Who cares what the warning was about!
Obviously even trying a trick such as a delay, or having the computer’s voice synthesizer read you the error message wouldn’t help.
So when the error message is important, what would cause you to actually pause and read the darn thing? Any suggestions?
Maybe something like a ten second lockout on the message. Might seem a bit naggy, but it would make most people stop to read it. I try to read error messages, mainly so I can Google them later so I can figure out WTF happened and take steps to stop it from happening again or just to fix the darn thing.
Comment by Douglas — March 5, 2010 @ 12:59 am
A ten second delay would never pass muster of the Marketing Dept. They would get so many complaints! People would be agitated. They would leave their computers, or read a book! Hackers would discover where the timeout was buried in the code and self-patch to get rid of it.
You’re one of the few who actually look up error messages. I do, yet I still get questions from readers on that subject. So I Google the answer and email it to them. Some of the error message information on the Internet is pretty good — but how do you get people to read it?
Comment by admin — March 5, 2010 @ 6:15 am
Most times I just go like “Oh, it’s an error” and click the close or OK button.
You may want to change the font used here; I read “click” as something that shouldn’t be discussed here.
Comment by linuxlove — March 5, 2010 @ 6:34 am
One way would be to make the process of dismissing an error slightly different each time – so that the user takes a second or two to figure out how to dismiss it.
On a related note, I dislike how the error messages (non-UAC type) keep reading from the keyboard buffer. So if I am typing something, and by coincidence (which happens once every few months) the error message pops up when I type space or something, it just vanishes. I typically at least read an error message the first few times an application throws it.
On a related note – I never just dismiss the UAC. Unless I know that I am doing something that required admin rights (installing a program etc.), I click no. If something doesn’t work soon after the no, I can always go back and fix it.
Comment by sriksrid — March 5, 2010 @ 8:45 am
Good feedback.
I would also suggest perhaps using humor or animation in a way that would attract attention. Perhaps a series of messages in a dialog box. Like, “Uh oh!” followed by “There is a problem.” and then perhaps some display that would be interesting to see. People seem to enjoy entertainment, though being entertained when they’ve just lost a year’s worth of folders might be inappropriate.
Comment by admin — March 5, 2010 @ 8:59 am
I would make them bigger, or maybe I would get rid of the ‘OK’ or ‘Yes’ or ‘Whatever’ buttons and instead do like command line interface programs do. Just leave a text box and put “Do you understand? Yes/No.”
I’m pretty sure it would also receive a lot of complaints though…
Comment by samus250 — March 6, 2010 @ 5:31 am
It probably would… after all, you have to work to the lowest common denominator, which is that people who aren’t overly bright use technology.
Comment by Douglas — March 6, 2010 @ 5:54 pm
There is a school of thought that says some people are too dumb to use computers. Of course. Some people are too dumb to drive, but we let them anyway. Maybe I’ll make my next post about this topic . . .
Comment by admin — March 6, 2010 @ 8:59 pm