6 ms·

In their gif, the big alert right at the top, in the very first bullet point, says it will make a copy of the object. They intentionally scrolled down quickly i

In their gif, the big alert right at the top, in the very first bullet point, says it will make a copy of the object. They intentionally scrolled down quickly in the gif to hide this. Is the argument that this should have been a pop-up that required you to click “ok” instead? "This action creates a copy of the object with updated settings and a new last-modified date. You can change the storage class without making a new copy of the object using a lifecycle rule."

gzer0 6y ago
Here's a screen capture of the warning sign for anyone that wants to read it: https://i.imgur.com/Qjiu8F0.png https://i.imgur.com/Qjiu8F0.png
- dankwizard 6y ago
  thank you i appreciated it
ineedasername 6y ago
Yes, I don't think that failing to read a notification at the top of the page about what you're doing constitutes a significant UX problem. I also review my bills every month, which would have mitigated this issue significantly.
- Sebb767 6y ago
  > I also review my bills every month, which would have mitigated this issue significantly. A cursory look would've been enough, really. If this would have been 20$ or so, I would not fault anyone for missing it. But 800$ missing every month should definitely get some attention, especially when these are amounts endangering your ability to stay afloat, as the author seems to argue.
- duckfang 6y ago
  And hourly billing alerts would also help. Admittedly the feature that Azure has that AWS doesn't is "kill everything when exceed X dollars". Not so great for prod, but superb for dev. Please realize that when you hand devs with AWS keys, you're assigning an unlimited liability to your company with whatever accident a dev might do. (Accidents happens, and quite often when experimenting.)
- tpoacher 6y ago
  Failing to read a notification at the top of the page is exactly the definition of a UX problem.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    You haven't really explained what you mean. Basically I said the UX was adequate, you said it's not. I'll elaborate: human error is not all reducible to a UX problem, at least not in any meaningful sense in casting blame at AWS here for causing the user's error. Giving users an explanation of their actions at the top of the page is not particularly bad UX, it seems adequate. If course they could do more, modals that say "here's your estimated costs for the action you're taking" and that might be better. But then again that might not be practical across the range of AWS modules, and a user that if ignores their bills and bank statements for most of a year might easily ignore those notices as well. If you define every mistake a user makes as a UX problem then you've defined it broadly enough that it loses meaning. I doubt that's you're overall intent, but in claiming the user's failure to read the top of the page was a UX problem you're crossing over into that territory. I might be more sympathetic if the user wasn't so lacking in awareness that they also didn't read their bills and bank statements for so many months, and didn't take the hour of time upfront that was ultimately necessary to understand part of a massively complex system. No reasonable level of UX design would have fixed all of that.
    - weeblewobble 6y ago
      I do think this is bad UX. The warning message (which basically says "this button doesn't do what it says it does") is commingled with a bunch of other less-important warning messages. It's also a bit ambiguous-- it seems to be focused on how it will change the settings and last modified date. I could see how one could read that as "this action will create a copy of your files [and then delete the old ones] rather than moving them directly", warning you that your file metadata will be impacted. There's also the problem that these warnings are everywhere in AWS console so you develop a bit of blindness to them. So they have a pretty much wrong button name ("Edit Storage Class" --> "Copy to a different storage class") with an ambiguous warning message commingled with a bunch of other warning messages. I'd call that bad UX. That being said, 8 months is too long for this bill to be considered AWS' fault. and the fact that he's been working really hard on his movie is irrelevant and comes off as whiny
p1necone 6y ago
I'm 50/50 on whether they scrolled down quickly to hide it, or actually still didn't read it before doing anything. This is 100% negligence on their part, not AWS's fault. The cloud isn't magic, you still need to read documentation.
- mikeyla85 6y ago
  OP here. The warning doesn't actually have to do with what resulted in the additional charge, unless I'm missing something big.
  - duckfang 6y ago
    Please read the orange triangle warning you scrolled past. When you did the glacier operation, the GUI was telling you that it was COPYING the files to glacier. Those files also existed elsewhere, in normal S3 space. There's ways to cure this issue at the command line, primarily a list of all attributes per file - and there you can see the respective storage plans. Secondly, do you have billing alerts set up, at 1.25x per average day's accrual? (30$/mo would be around $1.25/day, as not to email-bomb you). Billing alerts would NOT have solved the issue of improper storage class, but you would have seen a massive spike in costs. It probably would have cost you maybe $100-$200 to solve it early on. Thirdly, how much of the 5 Pillars of Well Architected Framework are you following? ( https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/apn/the-5-pillars-of-the-aws-well-architected-framework/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/apn/the-5-pillars-of-the-aws-we... ) Admittedly some of these are "pay AWS double and get disaster prevention" style rules. However... pillar 5 is all about cost optimization. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound (or $7k) of cure.
    - mikeyla85 6y ago
      Ah that's interesting. In my support conversations with Amazon they never brought up copies of objects as a reason billing could be high, so I didn't look into it. They told me the issue was incomplete multipart uploads, so I just believed that. My assumption when reading that message was that it would appear to update the storage class, but actually create a copy of objects with a different storage class and delete the old objects. It doesn't make sense that it would just duplicate my objects, and I still can't really imagine anyone wanting that. Why would a box called "Edit storage class" create a copy and then not destroy it? Why not make a dialog box that just...edited the storage class? So maybe I had a previous version of all my files sitting in regular S3, with the current version sitting in Deep Glacier, and I may have just happened to delete previous versions of objects when I created the lifecycle rule. To answer your question -- I don't think we're following any of the pillars of well architected frameworks. I'm a filmmaker who knows Javascript and PHP and not system architecture, and I was looking for a cheap way to not lose our movie to the ravages of time. I'm definitely not the only one.
amanzi 6y ago
Yep, it's right there with a big warning sign saying that a copy will be created. This is something that any IT Pro would notice and read and then hopefully understand the impact. The author can argue that the UX is bad, but they can't say it's "faulty" or "inaccurate". Edit... After fully reading the article, the author even says this: "If an interface doesn’t quite do what it appears to, it should give a warning." The warning is right there in the UI, captured perfectly by his own screengrab.
- chillfox 6y ago
  "This is something that any IT Pro would notice" Which is presumably why the article mentions the below in the second paragraph. "After this experience, I cannot honestly recommend using AWS unless you have a professional sysadmin operate it for you"
  - robjan 6y ago
    Shouldn't any sensible person see a red triangle with an exclamation mark and read the notice?
    - chillfox 6y ago
      Maybe, but it has never been my experience that a warning that does not block progress is sufficient for most people to stop and think.
    - burundi_coffee 6y ago
      "My computer is throwing errors around, can you help me?" "Sure, what do they say?" "Who?" "The errors" "I don't know, I clicked them away"
    - tpoacher 6y ago
      I suppose not in the Facebook day and age where your next door neighbour's dog getting a new pedicure warrants a big red alert in your news feed, among all other big red alerts.
    - 6y ago
mikeyla85 6y ago
It says that it will make a copy of the object. However, that was not what caused the charges. The charges were caused because (a) selecting all does not select incomplete multipart uploads, which are hidden in the interface, and (b) I believe the operation is not recursive. If it created a copy of the object as described, the charges would go away.
cosmotic 6y ago
The presence of a warning or documentation does not mean there isn't a problem here. The word 'edit' implies it will apply to the selection, which is different than copying the item to the new storage class. This is akin to 'solving' a user interface problem with training instead of fixing the underlying issue. Amazon failed to properly incorporate human factors in their design.
mikeyla85 6y ago
According to support, the issue was incomplete multipart uploads, not the creation of a copy, though. So I don't think that warning relates to the overcharge.
croes 6y ago
Intentionally? Ever heard of Hanlon's razor? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
tpoacher 6y ago
You are mistaking a technical explanation for good UX. The warning may have well just said please note that the combothrombobulator may break existing encabulator nodes. If what you need is duckbill-style joints instead, use a thermocoupling-paradigm instillator instead. When it should have said "THIS MAKES EXTRA COPIES WHICH COST MORE".

gzer0 6y ago

Here's a screen capture of the warning sign for anyone that wants to read it: https://i.imgur.com/Qjiu8F0.png https://i.imgur.com/Qjiu8F0.png

dankwizard 6y ago
thank you i appreciated it

ineedasername 6y ago

Yes, I don't think that failing to read a notification at the top of the page about what you're doing constitutes a significant UX problem. I also review my bills every month, which would have mitigated this issue significantly.

Sebb767 6y ago
> I also review my bills every month, which would have mitigated this issue significantly. A cursory look would've been enough, really. If this would have been 20$ or so, I would not fault anyone for missing it. But 800$ missing every month should definitely get some attention, especially when these are amounts endangering your ability to stay afloat, as the author seems to argue.
duckfang 6y ago
And hourly billing alerts would also help. Admittedly the feature that Azure has that AWS doesn't is "kill everything when exceed X dollars". Not so great for prod, but superb for dev. Please realize that when you hand devs with AWS keys, you're assigning an unlimited liability to your company with whatever accident a dev might do. (Accidents happens, and quite often when experimenting.)
tpoacher 6y ago
Failing to read a notification at the top of the page is exactly the definition of a UX problem.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  You haven't really explained what you mean. Basically I said the UX was adequate, you said it's not. I'll elaborate: human error is not all reducible to a UX problem, at least not in any meaningful sense in casting blame at AWS here for causing the user's error. Giving users an explanation of their actions at the top of the page is not particularly bad UX, it seems adequate. If course they could do more, modals that say "here's your estimated costs for the action you're taking" and that might be better. But then again that might not be practical across the range of AWS modules, and a user that if ignores their bills and bank statements for most of a year might easily ignore those notices as well. If you define every mistake a user makes as a UX problem then you've defined it broadly enough that it loses meaning. I doubt that's you're overall intent, but in claiming the user's failure to read the top of the page was a UX problem you're crossing over into that territory. I might be more sympathetic if the user wasn't so lacking in awareness that they also didn't read their bills and bank statements for so many months, and didn't take the hour of time upfront that was ultimately necessary to understand part of a massively complex system. No reasonable level of UX design would have fixed all of that.
  - weeblewobble 6y ago
    I do think this is bad UX. The warning message (which basically says "this button doesn't do what it says it does") is commingled with a bunch of other less-important warning messages. It's also a bit ambiguous-- it seems to be focused on how it will change the settings and last modified date. I could see how one could read that as "this action will create a copy of your files [and then delete the old ones] rather than moving them directly", warning you that your file metadata will be impacted. There's also the problem that these warnings are everywhere in AWS console so you develop a bit of blindness to them. So they have a pretty much wrong button name ("Edit Storage Class" --> "Copy to a different storage class") with an ambiguous warning message commingled with a bunch of other warning messages. I'd call that bad UX. That being said, 8 months is too long for this bill to be considered AWS' fault. and the fact that he's been working really hard on his movie is irrelevant and comes off as whiny

p1necone 6y ago

I'm 50/50 on whether they scrolled down quickly to hide it, or actually still didn't read it before doing anything. This is 100% negligence on their part, not AWS's fault. The cloud isn't magic, you still need to read documentation.

mikeyla85 6y ago
OP here. The warning doesn't actually have to do with what resulted in the additional charge, unless I'm missing something big.
- duckfang 6y ago
  Please read the orange triangle warning you scrolled past. When you did the glacier operation, the GUI was telling you that it was COPYING the files to glacier. Those files also existed elsewhere, in normal S3 space. There's ways to cure this issue at the command line, primarily a list of all attributes per file - and there you can see the respective storage plans. Secondly, do you have billing alerts set up, at 1.25x per average day's accrual? (30$/mo would be around $1.25/day, as not to email-bomb you). Billing alerts would NOT have solved the issue of improper storage class, but you would have seen a massive spike in costs. It probably would have cost you maybe $100-$200 to solve it early on. Thirdly, how much of the 5 Pillars of Well Architected Framework are you following? ( https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/apn/the-5-pillars-of-the-aws-well-architected-framework/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/apn/the-5-pillars-of-the-aws-we... ) Admittedly some of these are "pay AWS double and get disaster prevention" style rules. However... pillar 5 is all about cost optimization. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound (or $7k) of cure.
  - mikeyla85 6y ago
    Ah that's interesting. In my support conversations with Amazon they never brought up copies of objects as a reason billing could be high, so I didn't look into it. They told me the issue was incomplete multipart uploads, so I just believed that. My assumption when reading that message was that it would appear to update the storage class, but actually create a copy of objects with a different storage class and delete the old objects. It doesn't make sense that it would just duplicate my objects, and I still can't really imagine anyone wanting that. Why would a box called "Edit storage class" create a copy and then not destroy it? Why not make a dialog box that just...edited the storage class? So maybe I had a previous version of all my files sitting in regular S3, with the current version sitting in Deep Glacier, and I may have just happened to delete previous versions of objects when I created the lifecycle rule. To answer your question -- I don't think we're following any of the pillars of well architected frameworks. I'm a filmmaker who knows Javascript and PHP and not system architecture, and I was looking for a cheap way to not lose our movie to the ravages of time. I'm definitely not the only one.

amanzi 6y ago

Yep, it's right there with a big warning sign saying that a copy will be created. This is something that any IT Pro would notice and read and then hopefully understand the impact. The author can argue that the UX is bad, but they can't say it's "faulty" or "inaccurate". Edit... After fully reading the article, the author even says this: "If an interface doesn’t quite do what it appears to, it should give a warning." The warning is right there in the UI, captured perfectly by his own screengrab.

chillfox 6y ago
"This is something that any IT Pro would notice" Which is presumably why the article mentions the below in the second paragraph. "After this experience, I cannot honestly recommend using AWS unless you have a professional sysadmin operate it for you"
- robjan 6y ago
  Shouldn't any sensible person see a red triangle with an exclamation mark and read the notice?
  - chillfox 6y ago
    Maybe, but it has never been my experience that a warning that does not block progress is sufficient for most people to stop and think.
  - burundi_coffee 6y ago
    "My computer is throwing errors around, can you help me?" "Sure, what do they say?" "Who?" "The errors" "I don't know, I clicked them away"
  - tpoacher 6y ago
    I suppose not in the Facebook day and age where your next door neighbour's dog getting a new pedicure warrants a big red alert in your news feed, among all other big red alerts.
  - 6y ago

mikeyla85 6y ago

It says that it will make a copy of the object. However, that was not what caused the charges. The charges were caused because (a) selecting all does not select incomplete multipart uploads, which are hidden in the interface, and (b) I believe the operation is not recursive. If it created a copy of the object as described, the charges would go away.

cosmotic 6y ago

The presence of a warning or documentation does not mean there isn't a problem here. The word 'edit' implies it will apply to the selection, which is different than copying the item to the new storage class. This is akin to 'solving' a user interface problem with training instead of fixing the underlying issue. Amazon failed to properly incorporate human factors in their design.

mikeyla85 6y ago

According to support, the issue was incomplete multipart uploads, not the creation of a copy, though. So I don't think that warning relates to the overcharge.

croes 6y ago

Intentionally? Ever heard of Hanlon's razor? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

tpoacher 6y ago

You are mistaking a technical explanation for good UX. The warning may have well just said please note that the combothrombobulator may break existing encabulator nodes. If what you need is duckbill-style joints instead, use a thermocoupling-paradigm instillator instead. When it should have said "THIS MAKES EXTRA COPIES WHICH COST MORE".