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In deep pain, I have to regret I even know some IT people that don't read error messages. (I suspect partial problem is here the effort he has to read.)
by Qantourisc 10y ago
In deep pain, I have to regret I even know some IT people that don't read error messages. (I suspect partial problem is here the effort he has to read.)
- tremon 10y agoNot reading error popups is the norm around me, and I work in IT support. It has nothing to do with the message, but the medium: a message popup disrupt the user's workflow, and more often than not for no good reason. All people who work with computers very quickly get in the habit of dismissing flow-breaking popups. I'd say the problem is not with the people.
- Bartweiss 10y agoIt's like the ER doctors who miss crucial "Patient is dying!" alarms. They're not just lazy or careless, they work in an environment where every device is screaming "I am here!" every minute of the day. It's both an important work skill and an unavoidable physiological response to tune out obnoxious and unimportant stimuli, to the point where the people abusing those signals ought to be accountable.
- digi_owl 10y agoYou had something similar that resulted in a mid-Atlantic plane crash some years ago. The crew got so blanketed by automated warnings, and didn't have any visual cues thanks to being a night flight, that they basically flew the plane into the ocean.
- ckib16 10y agoThis same topic is taught in flight training. Pilots are repeatedly taught to never "silence" the annoying warning horns that come on for different reasons (slow speed, wrong landing gear configuration). The idea being that mindlessly dismissing alarms will build a bad habit pattern. Especially when you're actually in trouble.
- digi_owl 10y agoI suspect this is why Microsoft introduced the notification center, and seems hell bent on redirecting popups there.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoIn case of IT, you also have to factor in that sometimes people dismiss error messages because they already know what they're telling. Like in my C++ days, I would often not bother looking at the error output at all, because the moment I saw that compiler is starting to spew out text, I immediately realized where I've made a typo.
- digi_owl 10y agoThen again, compiler errors can be nigh incomprehensible.
- ZeroGravitas 10y agoI don't read them either it turns out, even though I would assume I'm the kind of person to do so. I particularly notice this when say in a video game you need to hit one button to exit and then it asks you to confirm. I can find myself going through the exit, cancel exit, exit again loop multiple times before my brain catches up to what's happening.