5 ms·

When did we stop building software for the "Power User" persona? I don't disagree that there are some (many?) people who start screaming and running in circles

When did we stop building software for the "Power User" persona? I don't disagree that there are some (many?) people who start screaming and running in circles when they see an error code, but not every user is like that. You don't have to be a dev to care any the distinction between a system doing its job and silently failing. Why not have some indication that there's smoke coming out from the engine?

Raed667 3y ago
Opening the dev tools and looking at the network tab is easy enough for power users.
- bmacho 3y ago
  It is not working in Firefox or in Edge though, only if you already had your dev tools open before you navigated to the website.
  - rhaway84773 3y ago
    Create a chrome shortcut that auto opens dev tools for you. You can replace your regular chrome with this instead. https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/open/#auto https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/open/#auto
  - recursive 3y ago
    You also have to hit the reload button.
riedel 3y ago
Why not use extensions for this like (quickly searching firefox add-ons): https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/http-status-code/ https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/http-status-code... ? I think we just have fight for poweruser options to be available via APIs and support the add-on ecosystem.
unmole 3y ago
This sounds like inconsequential quibbling over terminology. There's nothing stopping a browser power user from opening up dev tools to look at error codes.
- falcor84 3y ago
  It's not inconsequential in my mind because as a power user I don't a-priori care about the site enough to have a reason to open the dev tools. What I'm missing is the indication that there even is a problem of some sort, and that if I wanted to see the problem details, I could open the dev tools. In other words, as a power user, I want to know if the site has a "You problem", and the only explanation I fully accept for why the modern web doesn't notify users about website errors is that it allows companies to save on QA costs.
- fruitreunion1 3y ago
  Their point I think is that often (to varying degrees), 'power user' things are less convenient to do or behind configuration options or menus and so on nowadays.
onion2k 3y ago
When did we stop building software for the "Power User" persona? I think the change was very simple - we stopped bothering with middleground. "Power Users" were treated like "users, but a bit more", so we had 'users', 'power users', and 'developers'. All that happened is that we just accepted that power user can have the same access to tools as developers. We didn't stop giving power users extra power. We gave power users more power.
- CapsAdmin 3y ago
  Interesting perspective, you could flip the parent question and ask "when did power users become so lazy?"
  - troupo 3y ago
    Power users haven't become lazy. The middle ground for power users has disappeared. Now it's a split between "everything is so dumbed down and hidden behind fifteen layers of clicks" and "setting up and caring for your system is a second job in addition to your regular job".
    - rhaway84773 3y ago
      Dev tools in every browser is a 1 level menu in the main hamburger menu deep or available via 2 possible KB shortcuts (at least in Windows).
      - mike503 3y ago
        That assumes you're in a browser context. I think overall the complaint is every type of experience. Including native apps. You can't simply dev tools inside of a native app. Even with Charles proxy or something you'd be grasping at straws trying to figure out what may be the actual issue (and at that point you probably can't work around it anyway)
    - CapsAdmin 3y ago
      Sometimes when I put my power user hat on I find myself thinking that the software I'm currently using is not meant for power users and instead I need to look for the alternatives. Now it's not just a few clicks away but I need to install some new type of software. So the options for power users are still here, but they just aren't front and center as they used to as you said. This reminds me a little bit of the discussion around the iphone not being customizable and the response being that you have the option to just get an android phone instead. At some point in the spectrum here one must become lazy when they can't be bothered to click on a few things or find an alternate product, and you become entitled when you demand power user features to become front and center when the vast majority won't ever need to use the features. I've always had the opinion that it's possible to have a middle ground. User friendly defaults, the ability to dig deeper and the ability to make advanced features more readily accessible. It's not easy though, picking one or the other is definitely a lot easier.
imperialdrive 3y ago
At first we agreed; having a future with primarily "Power Users" in mind would be pretty empowering. Then, At second; it would likely mean many folks lacking in other skills, unbalancing what little we have in the society of work. At third: include all the error detail you like, simply put it behind a "click here for more details" side door.
- pseudalopex 3y ago
  > At second; it would likely mean many folks lacking in other skills, unbalancing what little we have in the society of work. What?
reportgunner 3y ago
> When did we stop building software for the "Power User" persona? The moment they(i mean we) started blocking ads I think.
- pseudalopex 3y ago
  Much software is not ad supported web sites.
  - IggleSniggle 3y ago
    Much of my web experience is broken by default due to blocking Google or occasionally Microsoft ad analytic data. Many flows expect these to load even if it is not necessary for the functioning of the site. Many other sites break just due to strict enforcement of anti-cross-site tracking. I'm not just talking about ad supported sites, although I guess you could say that Google Drive is indirectly ad supported. Since I do most of my ad blocking at the network layer rather than in my browser, it's not always obvious to me as the user whether it was a "my blocking broke the site" error or a "The site is broken" error.
Sebb767 3y ago
I don't see how this is related to an error code. Most of the time, if you get a non-200, the website is broken in some way and it's not your problem to fix. If it is (because you develop an extension, for example), it's easy enough to open dev tools. But for the most part, status codes aren't relevant even for power users, as you have no idea whether the page handles the error or is silently failing.
- brabel 3y ago
  > Most of the time, if you get a non-200, the website is broken in some way That's completely wrong. 1xx codes are all INFORMATIONAL (usually used for switching protocols). 2xx codes are all SUCCESS. 3xx codes are all REDIRECTs. 4xx codes are all CLIENT ERROR. Only 5xx codes are SERVER ERROR. See https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7231#section-6 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7231#section-6
  - pseudalopex 3y ago
    I didn't agree with their conclusion. But the quoted part seemed correct. Some response codes are much more common than others. Redirects are followed by some other code unless the web site is broken in some way. 410 means the web site removed something. Most of the time 404 means the same. Or a link was generated incorrectly.
  - erikerikson 3y ago
    OPs assertion checks out. Users won't see a 1X or a 3X. 2Xs are the success case. 4Xs are usually caused by an error in the website that the user didn't define but was served them. The exception is bad data formatting that the UI has probably flagged to them so they never send it to get the 4X. 5Xs are clearly a break in the website.
  - BrandoElFollito 3y ago
    And? 1xx you do not care 2xx you are fine and do not care 3xx you are redirected and do not care 4xx crap, the client is wrong, you cannot do anything because the app is wrong 5xx crap, the server is wrong and you cannot do anything either. "You hit a problem, it was reported to the devs, sorry. Try later" is the only reasonable message for normal users
rhaway84773 3y ago
Every user, with a single KB shortcut or a click in the main hamburger menu, can access dev tools. That’s pretty power user friendly.
somat 3y ago
Related: the boot scroll. most of the time the scroll of boot messages is harmless and when the system fails to boot it is very very useful to see where. yet the design types hated it. and now no desktop orientated OS shows a boot scroll, opting for a near useless spinner instead. Opinion: I quite like the scroll, I think it comforting to see what the machine is doing. I think this is why sim city put a fake one in their loader(reticulating splines anyone). I wonder if the sim city messages tied into actual load events and could be used by the programmers to debug the loader. I think the later ones were random, but 2000 might of had an order to it.
- adamsb6 3y ago
  I like the standard way that most Linux distros do this: default to a pretty loading graphic, but you can hit esc to see the boot scroll.
- dwaite 3y ago
  The boot scroll was/is actively harmful in that it requires process-of-elimination troubleshooting to recognize deviations from a "normal" boot process. The individual subsystems should be able to recognize their correct state and output a clear diagnostic when they are not in that state. I shouldn't have to step back through e.g. several broken services to find out my second ethernet port didn't initialize.
account-5 3y ago
Isn't the power user served perfectly fine with the devtools? I mean if a website breaks a normal user is going to leave it the power user will open devtools?
babypuncher 3y ago
That user is who the dev tools are for? It's not a big deal for a power user to hit F12 then click the network tab...
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
> When did we stop building software for the "Power User" persona? 1996 or 1997. I can't narrow it down further. Shortly after that, they actively became hostile to power users. Just play with your dumb little consumer appliance like you're supposed to.
mcronce 3y ago
My current pet example for the trend of hiding more and more details from users is an issue I recently had with Doordash. I was trying to place an order, and it kept failing with a red banner stating "something went wrong" (I'm paraphrasing as I don't recall the exact verbage, but it was one of those completely worthless error messages) Pop open dev tools ... the server is returning something about a graphql error. Support had no idea what was wrong. The problem ended up being that my saved credit card had expired. For fuck's sake, that is a user-actionable error; tell me what the problem is. At least tell me it was a payment problem, since that's probably all the payment processor told you.
- kube-system 3y ago
  This is probably not the result of internationally dumbing down the message, but lazy error handling.
  - pomstazlesa 3y ago
    It's probably both. Since you want to obscure it from the end user, you can also afford to be lazy and have sloppy implementation.
    - Guvante 3y ago
      That isn't true, laziness will punch straight through a tight definition of error code handling. After all if you have three API layers realizing in this situation the second layer isn't forwarding that error code because it erroneously thought it was one you hide behind a generic one is pretty common.
  - WirelessGigabit 3y ago
    This is just a general try catch. Build happy path, get VC money and deploy. We'll fix it later.
BrandoElFollito 3y ago
Probably because power users are en insignificant fraction of users for a general public application. I drive a car and only care about the speed, how far I can drive and to be warned that I have to stop if something is wrong. I do not care about the temperature of the oil or water, about the tension on the thffr which powers the louhguh or why zgfnkvgv failed. I know that if something goes wrong I will call the road assistance number. If someone wants to learn more there is the hidden bus they can plug into, aka Dev Tools For Cars

Raed667 3y ago

Opening the dev tools and looking at the network tab is easy enough for power users.

bmacho 3y ago
It is not working in Firefox or in Edge though, only if you already had your dev tools open before you navigated to the website.
- rhaway84773 3y ago
  Create a chrome shortcut that auto opens dev tools for you. You can replace your regular chrome with this instead. https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/open/#auto https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/open/#auto
- recursive 3y ago
  You also have to hit the reload button.

riedel 3y ago

Why not use extensions for this like (quickly searching firefox add-ons): https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/http-status-code/ https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/http-status-code... ? I think we just have fight for poweruser options to be available via APIs and support the add-on ecosystem.

unmole 3y ago

This sounds like inconsequential quibbling over terminology. There's nothing stopping a browser power user from opening up dev tools to look at error codes.

falcor84 3y ago
It's not inconsequential in my mind because as a power user I don't a-priori care about the site enough to have a reason to open the dev tools. What I'm missing is the indication that there even is a problem of some sort, and that if I wanted to see the problem details, I could open the dev tools. In other words, as a power user, I want to know if the site has a "You problem", and the only explanation I fully accept for why the modern web doesn't notify users about website errors is that it allows companies to save on QA costs.
fruitreunion1 3y ago
Their point I think is that often (to varying degrees), 'power user' things are less convenient to do or behind configuration options or menus and so on nowadays.

onion2k 3y ago

When did we stop building software for the "Power User" persona? I think the change was very simple - we stopped bothering with middleground. "Power Users" were treated like "users, but a bit more", so we had 'users', 'power users', and 'developers'. All that happened is that we just accepted that power user can have the same access to tools as developers. We didn't stop giving power users extra power. We gave power users more power.

CapsAdmin 3y ago
Interesting perspective, you could flip the parent question and ask "when did power users become so lazy?"
- troupo 3y ago
  Power users haven't become lazy. The middle ground for power users has disappeared. Now it's a split between "everything is so dumbed down and hidden behind fifteen layers of clicks" and "setting up and caring for your system is a second job in addition to your regular job".
  - rhaway84773 3y ago
    Dev tools in every browser is a 1 level menu in the main hamburger menu deep or available via 2 possible KB shortcuts (at least in Windows).
    - mike503 3y ago
      That assumes you're in a browser context. I think overall the complaint is every type of experience. Including native apps. You can't simply dev tools inside of a native app. Even with Charles proxy or something you'd be grasping at straws trying to figure out what may be the actual issue (and at that point you probably can't work around it anyway)
  - CapsAdmin 3y ago
    Sometimes when I put my power user hat on I find myself thinking that the software I'm currently using is not meant for power users and instead I need to look for the alternatives. Now it's not just a few clicks away but I need to install some new type of software. So the options for power users are still here, but they just aren't front and center as they used to as you said. This reminds me a little bit of the discussion around the iphone not being customizable and the response being that you have the option to just get an android phone instead. At some point in the spectrum here one must become lazy when they can't be bothered to click on a few things or find an alternate product, and you become entitled when you demand power user features to become front and center when the vast majority won't ever need to use the features. I've always had the opinion that it's possible to have a middle ground. User friendly defaults, the ability to dig deeper and the ability to make advanced features more readily accessible. It's not easy though, picking one or the other is definitely a lot easier.

imperialdrive 3y ago

At first we agreed; having a future with primarily "Power Users" in mind would be pretty empowering. Then, At second; it would likely mean many folks lacking in other skills, unbalancing what little we have in the society of work. At third: include all the error detail you like, simply put it behind a "click here for more details" side door.

pseudalopex 3y ago
> At second; it would likely mean many folks lacking in other skills, unbalancing what little we have in the society of work. What?

reportgunner 3y ago

> When did we stop building software for the "Power User" persona? The moment they(i mean we) started blocking ads I think.

pseudalopex 3y ago
Much software is not ad supported web sites.
- IggleSniggle 3y ago
  Much of my web experience is broken by default due to blocking Google or occasionally Microsoft ad analytic data. Many flows expect these to load even if it is not necessary for the functioning of the site. Many other sites break just due to strict enforcement of anti-cross-site tracking. I'm not just talking about ad supported sites, although I guess you could say that Google Drive is indirectly ad supported. Since I do most of my ad blocking at the network layer rather than in my browser, it's not always obvious to me as the user whether it was a "my blocking broke the site" error or a "The site is broken" error.

Sebb767 3y ago

I don't see how this is related to an error code. Most of the time, if you get a non-200, the website is broken in some way and it's not your problem to fix. If it is (because you develop an extension, for example), it's easy enough to open dev tools. But for the most part, status codes aren't relevant even for power users, as you have no idea whether the page handles the error or is silently failing.

brabel 3y ago
> Most of the time, if you get a non-200, the website is broken in some way That's completely wrong. 1xx codes are all INFORMATIONAL (usually used for switching protocols). 2xx codes are all SUCCESS. 3xx codes are all REDIRECTs. 4xx codes are all CLIENT ERROR. Only 5xx codes are SERVER ERROR. See https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7231#section-6 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7231#section-6
- pseudalopex 3y ago
  I didn't agree with their conclusion. But the quoted part seemed correct. Some response codes are much more common than others. Redirects are followed by some other code unless the web site is broken in some way. 410 means the web site removed something. Most of the time 404 means the same. Or a link was generated incorrectly.
- erikerikson 3y ago
  OPs assertion checks out. Users won't see a 1X or a 3X. 2Xs are the success case. 4Xs are usually caused by an error in the website that the user didn't define but was served them. The exception is bad data formatting that the UI has probably flagged to them so they never send it to get the 4X. 5Xs are clearly a break in the website.
- BrandoElFollito 3y ago
  And? 1xx you do not care 2xx you are fine and do not care 3xx you are redirected and do not care 4xx crap, the client is wrong, you cannot do anything because the app is wrong 5xx crap, the server is wrong and you cannot do anything either. "You hit a problem, it was reported to the devs, sorry. Try later" is the only reasonable message for normal users

rhaway84773 3y ago

Every user, with a single KB shortcut or a click in the main hamburger menu, can access dev tools. That’s pretty power user friendly.

somat 3y ago

Related: the boot scroll. most of the time the scroll of boot messages is harmless and when the system fails to boot it is very very useful to see where. yet the design types hated it. and now no desktop orientated OS shows a boot scroll, opting for a near useless spinner instead. Opinion: I quite like the scroll, I think it comforting to see what the machine is doing. I think this is why sim city put a fake one in their loader(reticulating splines anyone). I wonder if the sim city messages tied into actual load events and could be used by the programmers to debug the loader. I think the later ones were random, but 2000 might of had an order to it.

adamsb6 3y ago
I like the standard way that most Linux distros do this: default to a pretty loading graphic, but you can hit esc to see the boot scroll.
dwaite 3y ago
The boot scroll was/is actively harmful in that it requires process-of-elimination troubleshooting to recognize deviations from a "normal" boot process. The individual subsystems should be able to recognize their correct state and output a clear diagnostic when they are not in that state. I shouldn't have to step back through e.g. several broken services to find out my second ethernet port didn't initialize.

account-5 3y ago

Isn't the power user served perfectly fine with the devtools? I mean if a website breaks a normal user is going to leave it the power user will open devtools?

babypuncher 3y ago

That user is who the dev tools are for? It's not a big deal for a power user to hit F12 then click the network tab...

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

> When did we stop building software for the "Power User" persona? 1996 or 1997. I can't narrow it down further. Shortly after that, they actively became hostile to power users. Just play with your dumb little consumer appliance like you're supposed to.

mcronce 3y ago

My current pet example for the trend of hiding more and more details from users is an issue I recently had with Doordash. I was trying to place an order, and it kept failing with a red banner stating "something went wrong" (I'm paraphrasing as I don't recall the exact verbage, but it was one of those completely worthless error messages) Pop open dev tools ... the server is returning something about a graphql error. Support had no idea what was wrong. The problem ended up being that my saved credit card had expired. For fuck's sake, that is a user-actionable error; tell me what the problem is. At least tell me it was a payment problem, since that's probably all the payment processor told you.

kube-system 3y ago
This is probably not the result of internationally dumbing down the message, but lazy error handling.
- pomstazlesa 3y ago
  It's probably both. Since you want to obscure it from the end user, you can also afford to be lazy and have sloppy implementation.
  - Guvante 3y ago
    That isn't true, laziness will punch straight through a tight definition of error code handling. After all if you have three API layers realizing in this situation the second layer isn't forwarding that error code because it erroneously thought it was one you hide behind a generic one is pretty common.
- WirelessGigabit 3y ago
  This is just a general try catch. Build happy path, get VC money and deploy. We'll fix it later.

BrandoElFollito 3y ago

Probably because power users are en insignificant fraction of users for a general public application. I drive a car and only care about the speed, how far I can drive and to be warned that I have to stop if something is wrong. I do not care about the temperature of the oil or water, about the tension on the thffr which powers the louhguh or why zgfnkvgv failed. I know that if something goes wrong I will call the road assistance number. If someone wants to learn more there is the hidden bus they can plug into, aka Dev Tools For Cars