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Conversely, there's a balance to be struck here. Non-specific error messages can be very annoying, as they are un-Googleable and provide no troubleshooting hint

by rossng 11y ago

Conversely, there's a balance to be struck here. Non-specific error messages can be very annoying, as they are un-Googleable and provide no troubleshooting hints to a technical user. I think the best approach is to give a user-friendly error message ('you're not connected to the internet: try this ...') as well as an error code, exception message or something similar.

whoopdedo 11y ago
I've long since stopped considering any error message as Googleable. The legions of keyword campers will snatch up any moderately frequent error message and use it to peddle their fix-it programs regardless of whether they can actually fix that particular problem. The only thing worse is trying to search for anything with the word "driver" in it.
CaptSpify 11y ago
Agreed. One of the problems I have with these error messages, is that they often diagnose the wrong problem. If the actual error is a timeout and they say "try restarting your modem", but the problem is really a dns error, restarting the modem won't necessarily fix it. I think it's good to suggest "restarting your modem might help", as it is likely the problem, but give people the ability to look under the hood to find the real problem.
vacri 11y ago
There's definitely a balance to be struck here. I work at a small company where I routinely get asked by the sales staff as to why the email is broken and their emails are getting rejected. I've explained a few times that when they're sending 10MB+ attachments, the other end of the email system has a rule saying "too big", and there's nothing we can do at our end. Use a link or use smaller attachments. "But it works fine for other recipients!". Yes, those email systems are administered by different groups. This particular problem is not one that can be solved by hiding the details from the users; if they're not going to trust me when I say "just use sharing links, or if you have to, smaller attachments", then the users have to at least understand that email is a federated sytem, not a centralised system (perhaps not those exact terms, but the concepts). But on the other hand, half the time when they come to me to have a return email error explained and it's sitting right there in plain sight as to why, it's also surrounded by paragraphs of boilerplate that only an admin can understand. I don't blame them in those cases when they don't successfully parse the only real English sentence in a couple of paragraphs of 'line noise'.
- Dylan16807 11y ago
  Do analogies help? "some people have big mailboxes, some have small mailboxes, we can't change the size of a different company's mailbox"
  - vacri 11y ago
    It might do, thanks. I might change it to 'mailbox slot' though. I'll try it next time.

by rossng 11y ago

whoopdedo 11y ago

I've long since stopped considering any error message as Googleable. The legions of keyword campers will snatch up any moderately frequent error message and use it to peddle their fix-it programs regardless of whether they can actually fix that particular problem. The only thing worse is trying to search for anything with the word "driver" in it.

CaptSpify 11y ago

Agreed. One of the problems I have with these error messages, is that they often diagnose the wrong problem. If the actual error is a timeout and they say "try restarting your modem", but the problem is really a dns error, restarting the modem won't necessarily fix it. I think it's good to suggest "restarting your modem might help", as it is likely the problem, but give people the ability to look under the hood to find the real problem.

vacri 11y ago

There's definitely a balance to be struck here. I work at a small company where I routinely get asked by the sales staff as to why the email is broken and their emails are getting rejected. I've explained a few times that when they're sending 10MB+ attachments, the other end of the email system has a rule saying "too big", and there's nothing we can do at our end. Use a link or use smaller attachments. "But it works fine for other recipients!". Yes, those email systems are administered by different groups. This particular problem is not one that can be solved by hiding the details from the users; if they're not going to trust me when I say "just use sharing links, or if you have to, smaller attachments", then the users have to at least understand that email is a federated sytem, not a centralised system (perhaps not those exact terms, but the concepts). But on the other hand, half the time when they come to me to have a return email error explained and it's sitting right there in plain sight as to why, it's also surrounded by paragraphs of boilerplate that only an admin can understand. I don't blame them in those cases when they don't successfully parse the only real English sentence in a couple of paragraphs of 'line noise'.

Dylan16807 11y ago
Do analogies help? "some people have big mailboxes, some have small mailboxes, we can't change the size of a different company's mailbox"
- vacri 11y ago
  It might do, thanks. I might change it to 'mailbox slot' though. I'll try it next time.