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I tutored CS in college and I’ve seen this effect as well. On assignments where literally every step was documented, my students would still often not know wha

I tutored CS in college and I’ve seen this effect as well. On assignments where literally every step was documented, my students would still often not know what to do, because they had missed something small but crucial. After reading “The Design of Everyday Things”, I’ve come to design things based on the assumption that people don’t read. Even when their sole task is to read, they just don’t. I write compilers, and producing good error messages is a crucial part. But as it turns out, the best predictor of a programmer’s ability to notice and correct an error is not good error-message text—it’s accurate and precise source locations.

dllthomas 11y ago
"But as it turns out, the best predictor of a programmer’s ability to notice and correct an error is not good error-message text—it’s accurate and precise source locations." I believe a part of this is training not to read the error message text, by years of error message text not worth reading. I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say that this accounts for all (or even most) of the effect, though.
- viraptor 11y ago
  I thought "that's silly". Then I thought what I do when I get a compiler error. Most of the time I look at the line number, go to the source, try to figure out the mistake quickly, if nothing is obvious only then go back to the error and actually read what it said. You're right - I was taught for a long time that the compiler will usually say something like "unexpected ':'" - which is in most cases absolutely useless.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  Same reason why a dialog box is useless these days, as people have seen so many that they hit yes by muscle memory. In essence, computer logic and the monkey hind brain don't mix...
colanderman 11y ago
Heck, I write e-mails based on the assumption that people don't read them. It is sadly quite common for people whose sole job it is to read and reply to my e-mails (e.g. customer support) to read only the first few words of the first few paragraphs, generally stopping after the first noun and verb in each. I find that those are the same people who tend to write content-free walls of text. No wonder they only read the upper-left-hand corner of e-mails, that's the only part of what they write that's worth reading.
- uf 11y ago
  Being in customer support I often experience the exact opposite. We often do not know how to explain stuff so that really nobody will misunderstand. I've recently summarized this as "everything that can be misunderstood, no matter how remotely, will be misunderstood" even little things like "click this, then click that." We have an App (of debatable quality) where we made screenshots with big red circles so people know which button to push, as many do not read the button's label. Sure, I also misread email. Easy enough to say "sorry, my fault" and fix the problem. EDIT: As this might sound very negative: the whole situation is more like "collective creativity", rather than stupidity. I'm often astonished on how people think and what there reasoning is. Ways of thinking I'd never imagined. And no matter how absurd, there's always some logic reasoning.
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    Why i keep saying to myself and others that logic is a road, not a destination. Depending on the starting point, logic can get you wildly off the map even though it is, well, logic. We have managed to collectively fool ourselves into the thinking that if the result came from logic, it has to be right.

dllthomas 11y ago

"But as it turns out, the best predictor of a programmer’s ability to notice and correct an error is not good error-message text—it’s accurate and precise source locations." I believe a part of this is training not to read the error message text, by years of error message text not worth reading. I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say that this accounts for all (or even most) of the effect, though.

viraptor 11y ago
I thought "that's silly". Then I thought what I do when I get a compiler error. Most of the time I look at the line number, go to the source, try to figure out the mistake quickly, if nothing is obvious only then go back to the error and actually read what it said. You're right - I was taught for a long time that the compiler will usually say something like "unexpected ':'" - which is in most cases absolutely useless.
digi_owl 11y ago
Same reason why a dialog box is useless these days, as people have seen so many that they hit yes by muscle memory. In essence, computer logic and the monkey hind brain don't mix...

colanderman 11y ago

Heck, I write e-mails based on the assumption that people don't read them. It is sadly quite common for people whose sole job it is to read and reply to my e-mails (e.g. customer support) to read only the first few words of the first few paragraphs, generally stopping after the first noun and verb in each. I find that those are the same people who tend to write content-free walls of text. No wonder they only read the upper-left-hand corner of e-mails, that's the only part of what they write that's worth reading.

uf 11y ago
Being in customer support I often experience the exact opposite. We often do not know how to explain stuff so that really nobody will misunderstand. I've recently summarized this as "everything that can be misunderstood, no matter how remotely, will be misunderstood" even little things like "click this, then click that." We have an App (of debatable quality) where we made screenshots with big red circles so people know which button to push, as many do not read the button's label. Sure, I also misread email. Easy enough to say "sorry, my fault" and fix the problem. EDIT: As this might sound very negative: the whole situation is more like "collective creativity", rather than stupidity. I'm often astonished on how people think and what there reasoning is. Ways of thinking I'd never imagined. And no matter how absurd, there's always some logic reasoning.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  Why i keep saying to myself and others that logic is a road, not a destination. Depending on the starting point, logic can get you wildly off the map even though it is, well, logic. We have managed to collectively fool ourselves into the thinking that if the result came from logic, it has to be right.