10 ms·

I don't even like "We" in UI messages. "We couldn't find that site." "We're just updating your computer." Perhaps I'm just an old fogey, but passive voice fe

by rogual 3y ago

I don't even like "We" in UI messages. "We couldn't find that site." "We're just updating your computer." Perhaps I'm just an old fogey, but passive voice feels like the only right choice: "The site could not be found." "Your computer is being updated." The insertion of "We" feels like an imposition; the company who wrote the code reaching in and enacting their will with your equipment, using your screen as their soapbox. It's icky. And without "we", there can of course be no "we apologize".

HPsquared 3y ago
It can be worrying too, those Windows updates where you have a blank screen with something like "We're getting your files". Could be interpreted the wrong way...
- melagonster 3y ago
  at least they don't hide their purpose. current software is service.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    They literally said that Windows is a service on one of the Windows 10 splash screens during installation/update.
    - bitwize 3y ago
      Yeah. One of their mandatory update dialogs. "Windows is a service, and updates help us provide that service smoothly, so if you could reboot for updates, say, now, that would be terrific." Not an exact quote but it captures the spirit.
      - bitwize 3y ago
        Actual dialog here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/weve-got-an-update-for-you-can-click-anything-cant/138de1c8-1c41-4fa5-b671-2ebdf6010cb9 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/weve-g... Love the proposed solution. And yet Linux will never be ready for the desktop because you need the command line to fix problems...
rkagerer 3y ago
Agreed. When Microsoft started doing this and everyone else followed suit I found it super annoying. Meanwhile, some UX moron patted themselves in the back.
mdek 3y ago
I agree. Give me a short, concise, unapologetic error message. Some years ago, the Google Voice app for Android would put a message in the notification bar whenever there was even the most brief connectivity issue (which in the early days of 3G on android was frequent) starting off with "We have a problem ... <connnecting to your google voice account or something>". Considering that I used that GV number for two highly regulated activities with potential high liability, my heart would skip a beat every time a pull out my phone and see "We have a problem".
RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
>"The site could not be found." >"Your computer is being updated." But without the we, it is all passive voice. My English professors in college all hated passive voice.
- tanjtanjtanj 3y ago
  The passive voice is fine. The error of writing in the passive voice when you shouldn't be is common enough in composition that it has been short-handed to "never use the passive voice" though.
- loloquwowndueo 3y ago
  I bet they also told you to “avoid alliteration, always” ;)
mzs 3y ago
I don't even like verbs: "site not found" "software updating" edit: better: "update in progress"
- tanjtanjtanj 3y ago
  "Found" and "Updating" are verbs, you just changed the tense.
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago
    It's kinda foggy, "Found" can be an adjective, like "Found art".
    - tanjtanjtanj 3y ago
      That's technically true. The typical interpretation would be "[The] site [was] not found" as a verb. If you squint hard enough you can interpret is as "[The] site [is] not [in the state of being] found".
  - mzs 3y ago
    I guess, they are all missing 'to be' so incorrect - I don't know what to call that precisely - correct versions I avoid: "site cannot be found" "software is updating"/"updating is in progress"
    - tanjtanjtanj 3y ago
      They're just casual or conversational forms of the verbs. Dropping "is" from "is updating" for example.
    - LesZedCB 3y ago
      > gerund: a form that is derived from a verb but that functions as a noun, in English ending in -ing, e.g., asking in do you mind my asking you?.
      - 3y ago
kragen 3y ago
this sounds similar to my thesis in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39286124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39286124; what do you think of that comment?
- hulkmusic 3y ago
  I know this wasn't intentional, but when I click this link, I get a "No such item" error message, which I find to be ironic given the nature of this discussion. The link just has a trailing semicolon that needs to be removed, though.
  - kragen 3y ago
    we deeply regret the error and appreciate you bringing it to our attention https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39286124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39286124
lqet 3y ago
It gets even worse when error messages try to be cute or clever. It's childish and slightly patronizing. "Whoops, sorry! This wasn't what you were looking for!" "Oops! You broke the internet. We are trying to fix it." "Are you lost? Let us help you home (link to home page)" https://www.callbruno.com/en/404 https://www.callbruno.com/en/404 Just treat me like an adult and tell me what's wrong. Preferably with a googleable error code.
- layer8 3y ago
  This went viral a couple years ago: https://twitter.com/cherrikissu/status/972524442600558594 https://twitter.com/cherrikissu/status/972524442600558594 Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34812857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34812857
  - jodrellblank 3y ago
    From the discussion "This seems to be part of a broader, ongoing software infantilization process. Colors can't be sober either, everything has to be colorful, cheerful." What kind of shallow charicature of a tough guy do you have to be that seeing colours makes you feel like a baby and that cheerful is a bad thing, something to be stopped? > "Besides the obvious inappropriateness" Obvious?? All tools should be monochrome, and everyone should feel like they work in a funeral parlour? If it was supposed to be cheerful it wouldn't be called work? It must have been the colourful offices[1] which stopped Google from making any money, I guess? [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=google+offices&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=google+offices&iax=images&i...
    - buttercraft 3y ago
      That is a very uncharitable interpretation of that comment. Nowhere did they state that seeing colors makes them feel like a baby. Nor did they say everything should be monochrome. Is it so surprising that people expect tools they use for business to look and act professionally?
      - 3y ago
hbn 3y ago
I blame Google for popularizing that. Honestly it was fine enough for a YouTube error, "we couldn't find that video." But then everyone started copying it, including Microsoft who, in Windows 8, updated the blue screen of death to have a "whoopsie poopsie! Your computer has a widdle boo boo!" type message, accented with a :( sad face emoticon. Which I can guarantee was presented to countless people who lost real work. I'm sure they found that real reassuring.
- passwordoops 3y ago
  As an aside we once set a labmates' welcome screen to the blue screen of death. We let him angrily restart the laptop 3 times before letting on. This predated the annoying :( which I think would have led him to break the computer after the second try
  - 13of40 3y ago
    Back in the day, the blue screen and unhandled exception messages in Windows had some actual useful information in them, like the memory address where it happened, some arguments passed to the bugcheck routine, etc. Back then the I-cannot-program-my-VCR crowd used to call tech support and scream about all the "egghead nonsense gobbledygook" on their screen. And since there's orders of magnitude more of them than there are people ready to fire up their kernel debugger and make use of that info, guess which tack the UX took?
  - ambigious7777 3y ago
    Reminds me of the time when we switched around all the icons on the desktop (ie chrome => file explorer, recycle bin => vlc) of my friend's laptop. He eventually gave up and launched the programs from command line.
- ragnese 3y ago
  I mentioned in another comment that the "apology" and humanization of the error messages doesn't bother me, but I have to admit that the frowny face and the infantilizing messages DOES make me irrationally irritated.
troupe 3y ago
My preference is to get the raw details I need. I'd rather see a stack trace than, "We are sorry but there seems to have been some type of error." However, I can also see a case for the other point of view. In working on large enterprise systems that are being used by users who are not technical, the "we" helps reinforce the idea that things aren't outside of the users locus of control. There is an whole group of people employed by the organization behind the scenes that are part of the way the overall system works. So the "we" emphasizes that the system, the error, the people who write the system, the person trying to use the system, are all part of whatever they are trying to do together.
layer8 3y ago
“We” is a Microsoft-ism they started with Windows 10. Yes, it is horrible, because it puts the user into a minority position against an anonymous “we” that apparently controls the system. It has a belittling and patronizing tone that emphasizes the user being powerless and non-autonomous, who instead has to be taken care of by, and is at the mercy of, the anonymous “we”.
- ragnese 3y ago
  But isn't all of that 100% true? You ARE at the whim of Microsoft. Microsoft DOES control your computer if you are running Windows.
- iguanayou 3y ago
  At least they stopped putting "My" in front of everything.
  - bitwize 3y ago
    But that was just brutal honesty: it's not your computer anymore.
    - Log_out_ 3y ago
      My Lions! My Tigers! My Bears! Oh my!
    - kmoser 3y ago
      I've never liked the "my" prefix for labels because it wasn't immediately obvious whether "my" referred to me, or to the person/company/entity/software which created the thing. This is particularly annoying when error messages are written from the point of view of an entity or fictitious person, e.g. "Sorry, I wasn't able to..." but things on screen are labeled "My..." Is "me" the user or the software?
      - bitwize 3y ago
        Back in the Windows 9x days, Windows didn't refer to itself with first-person pronouns. That was a development that occurred a few years after "My Computer" morphed into "This PC".
bruce343434 3y ago
"File could not be found; apologies have hereby been made"
- lelandfe 3y ago
  “Finding-related incident has occurred during browsing”
ragnese 3y ago
I'm also an old fogey by some metrics, but I don't relate to that sentiment very much. I think that using "we" and "apologizing" is fair for most user-facing applications. It's kind of like the old adage: the customer is always right. Obviously the user wanted to accomplish something, and tried something to achieve it, but your software couldn't figure out what they wanted or didn't have enough information to do it, etc. So, it's kind of like a store clerk saying "I'm sorry; we're all out of that color dress." Now, I would say this kind of "polite", human-centric, UI is not appropriate for e.g., sysadmin stuff like coreutils. I think it's perfectly fine if `cat /some/file` errors by saying "That file doesn't exist. Get bent." Also, just to inject some unrelated cynicism... To your example about updating, I think with how pushy companies like Microsoft are with updates, it might actually be more accurate for them to say "We are updating your computer and enacting our will with your equipment."
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- zilti 3y ago
  > It's kind of like the old adage: the customer is always right. And that BS is exactly why we have all those entitled adult babies now.
jvanderbot 3y ago
There's a difference of what is broke that matters. I'm playing out cases in my head ... If I visit a website, "They" broke. If my phone crashes, "It" broke. My phone shouldn't say "we" - I don't grok the idea of people in there. The website should say "we" - It's an organization presenting data, and I do believe there are people behind it. My car shouldn't say "we" - My car is an "it", a thing that lives in my garage and I drive around. NVIDIA drivers shouldn't say "we" - I'm running the program. I'm the agent. If anything, when I check for drivers, it should say "they have an update ready". The program is executing on my machine. It's mine. "They" are the people who publish updates. "We" (program and I) go fetch and install them. But programs don't have agency - so if "it" can't fetch "their" update, then "Update could not be fetched" conveys all the info I need to know. Then there's the "simpy" problem of always apologizing. For this reason I like TFA's final recommendation: > Use the word “sorry” only in error messages that result in serious problems for the user (for example, data loss or inability to use the computer). Don’t apologize if the issue occurred during the normal functioning of the program (for example, if the user needs to wait for a network connection to be found).
loloquwowndueo 3y ago
“apologies, the site cannot be found”
karmakaze 3y ago
I also don't like renaming well-known things based on a theme or analogies that are carried way too far and gets in the way of simple communication.
eschneider 3y ago
"The computer." Don't want to imply that it's "their" computer.
bemusedthrow75 3y ago
The automated railway announcements in the UK say "I'm sorry". Rubs me up the wrong way, because there would be no way to identify who the individual apologising is. However, I think error messages should apologise in the rare situation that there is no constructive, helpful, language-neutral way to convey an actionable response in an error.
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  Do they? I've just spent most of today on the railways, as it happens, but I didn't hear that despite some disruption; indeed I've never heard it. During my journey today, the Eurostar staff apologised over the tannoy personally, and the Great Western train manager personally announced a delay with great enthusiasm on a recent trip ("we are running three minutes behind schedule; we apologise for any inconvenience or disruption"). I'm curious to know which line/operator you've heard this on. I've got my own pet-peeve automated announcement though: "This is a National Rail security announcement..." Oh no! Is there a riot on the platform? Was someone assaulted? No, listen further: "...If you see something that doesn't look right, text the British Transport Police on 61016". Like, that's not even a real announcement, and doesn't every passenger know the number by now?? P.S. I feel that it's right to note for those unfamiliar with the English railways that GWR are probably the most effective train operator in England, and that the delay I had wasn't their fault. Eurostar, having almost exclusive use of HS1 and the Channel Tunnel, don't have that excuse available, but they were still impeccablely professional.
  - bemusedthrow75 3y ago
    It may have changed recently but it was a feature of on-station announcements (as opposed to on-train) in the south east for years.
    - seabass-labrax 3y ago
      Interesting; thank you for responding. I tend to keep my connections somewhat unreasonably short, so maybe I just don't wait around long enough to hear that announcement :)
grotorea 3y ago
> And without "we", there can of course be no "we apologize". What about passive voice for the software error, then apologize with we in the name of whoever developed that software?
uxjw 3y ago
I did dial-up tech support for MSN 20 years ago and was trained to say "We" instead of "I." It was probably meant to make users feel like there are many people ready to help them, or avoid personal responsibility. I still use "we" whenever I'm emailing clients, except now it's to sound like there is more than just me in this dept.
photochemsyn 3y ago
I like the idea of haiku error messages (as in Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett's Good Omens). "Site not found" becomes, with some LLM assistance: Amidst cyberspace vast, Site elusive, lost in void, Unreachable code.
- jerbear4328 3y ago
  That isn't a valid haiku, and it's much less clear, in my opinion. If you give me a nice big "404 Not Found" up front and then include a poem, HTTP cat, or easter egg, that would give the page personality while still being immediately useful.
  - seabass-labrax 3y ago
    Of course, it is still both a 404 HTTP response and a proper HTML webpage - so both the user agent and the website have an opportunity to explain the error. If both of them try to be funny, though, that's no good.
- rzzzt 3y ago
  A Salon article inspired many examples from readers: https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/error-haiku.en.html https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/error-haiku.en.html (I could swear that one of these appeared in BeOS' NetPositive browser if you visited a site without network access... but now I'm not so sure.) Edit: now I'm sure: https://8325.org/haiku/ https://8325.org/haiku/
  - seabass-labrax 3y ago
    I find this one hilarious, and rather relevant to this thread: "Errors have occurred. We won't tell you where or why. Lazy programmers." Thank you for sharing them :)
ukuina 3y ago
Or, go the other way and slightly insult the user's intelligence: "You cannot perform that action on that selection because it would violate causality" Strictly professionally, of course.
Zondartul 3y ago
I think it can be acceptable to use "I" in UI messages. After all, the app is the one doing things, and it's what I'm interacting with, so it would be fine to have a message like "I'm going to do X" or "I tried to do X but Y", or "I can't find the Z on this computer"
horsh1 3y ago
"File not found. Apologies are made". "The computer is being updated. Grief and sorrow."
patrick451 3y ago
> he insertion of "We" feels like an imposition; the company who wrote the code reaching in and enacting their will with your equipment, using your screen as their soapbox. It's icky. But they are reaching into your computer and enacting their will. The passive voice strikes me as even ickier when it is used to amorphously shift blame into the ether. I would much rather read "sorry, we fucked and formatted your harddisk because we suck at programming" than "an error occurred and all your data is gone". Take some damn responsibility.

by rogual 3y ago

HPsquared 3y ago

It can be worrying too, those Windows updates where you have a blank screen with something like "We're getting your files". Could be interpreted the wrong way...

melagonster 3y ago
at least they don't hide their purpose. current software is service.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  They literally said that Windows is a service on one of the Windows 10 splash screens during installation/update.
  - bitwize 3y ago
    Yeah. One of their mandatory update dialogs. "Windows is a service, and updates help us provide that service smoothly, so if you could reboot for updates, say, now, that would be terrific." Not an exact quote but it captures the spirit.
    - bitwize 3y ago
      Actual dialog here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/weve-got-an-update-for-you-can-click-anything-cant/138de1c8-1c41-4fa5-b671-2ebdf6010cb9 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/weve-g... Love the proposed solution. And yet Linux will never be ready for the desktop because you need the command line to fix problems...

rkagerer 3y ago

Agreed. When Microsoft started doing this and everyone else followed suit I found it super annoying. Meanwhile, some UX moron patted themselves in the back.

mdek 3y ago

I agree. Give me a short, concise, unapologetic error message. Some years ago, the Google Voice app for Android would put a message in the notification bar whenever there was even the most brief connectivity issue (which in the early days of 3G on android was frequent) starting off with "We have a problem ... <connnecting to your google voice account or something>". Considering that I used that GV number for two highly regulated activities with potential high liability, my heart would skip a beat every time a pull out my phone and see "We have a problem".

RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago

>"The site could not be found." >"Your computer is being updated." But without the we, it is all passive voice. My English professors in college all hated passive voice.

tanjtanjtanj 3y ago
The passive voice is fine. The error of writing in the passive voice when you shouldn't be is common enough in composition that it has been short-handed to "never use the passive voice" though.
loloquwowndueo 3y ago
I bet they also told you to “avoid alliteration, always” ;)

mzs 3y ago

I don't even like verbs: "site not found" "software updating" edit: better: "update in progress"

tanjtanjtanj 3y ago
"Found" and "Updating" are verbs, you just changed the tense.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago
  It's kinda foggy, "Found" can be an adjective, like "Found art".
  - tanjtanjtanj 3y ago
    That's technically true. The typical interpretation would be "[The] site [was] not found" as a verb. If you squint hard enough you can interpret is as "[The] site [is] not [in the state of being] found".
- mzs 3y ago
  I guess, they are all missing 'to be' so incorrect - I don't know what to call that precisely - correct versions I avoid: "site cannot be found" "software is updating"/"updating is in progress"
  - tanjtanjtanj 3y ago
    They're just casual or conversational forms of the verbs. Dropping "is" from "is updating" for example.
  - LesZedCB 3y ago
    > gerund: a form that is derived from a verb but that functions as a noun, in English ending in -ing, e.g., asking in do you mind my asking you?.
    - 3y ago

kragen 3y ago

this sounds similar to my thesis in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39286124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39286124; what do you think of that comment?

hulkmusic 3y ago
I know this wasn't intentional, but when I click this link, I get a "No such item" error message, which I find to be ironic given the nature of this discussion. The link just has a trailing semicolon that needs to be removed, though.
- kragen 3y ago
  we deeply regret the error and appreciate you bringing it to our attention https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39286124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39286124

lqet 3y ago

It gets even worse when error messages try to be cute or clever. It's childish and slightly patronizing. "Whoops, sorry! This wasn't what you were looking for!" "Oops! You broke the internet. We are trying to fix it." "Are you lost? Let us help you home (link to home page)" https://www.callbruno.com/en/404 https://www.callbruno.com/en/404 Just treat me like an adult and tell me what's wrong. Preferably with a googleable error code.

layer8 3y ago
This went viral a couple years ago: https://twitter.com/cherrikissu/status/972524442600558594 https://twitter.com/cherrikissu/status/972524442600558594 Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34812857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34812857
- jodrellblank 3y ago
  From the discussion "This seems to be part of a broader, ongoing software infantilization process. Colors can't be sober either, everything has to be colorful, cheerful." What kind of shallow charicature of a tough guy do you have to be that seeing colours makes you feel like a baby and that cheerful is a bad thing, something to be stopped? > "Besides the obvious inappropriateness" Obvious?? All tools should be monochrome, and everyone should feel like they work in a funeral parlour? If it was supposed to be cheerful it wouldn't be called work? It must have been the colourful offices[1] which stopped Google from making any money, I guess? [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=google+offices&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=google+offices&iax=images&i...
  - buttercraft 3y ago
    That is a very uncharitable interpretation of that comment. Nowhere did they state that seeing colors makes them feel like a baby. Nor did they say everything should be monochrome. Is it so surprising that people expect tools they use for business to look and act professionally?
    - 3y ago

hbn 3y ago

I blame Google for popularizing that. Honestly it was fine enough for a YouTube error, "we couldn't find that video." But then everyone started copying it, including Microsoft who, in Windows 8, updated the blue screen of death to have a "whoopsie poopsie! Your computer has a widdle boo boo!" type message, accented with a :( sad face emoticon. Which I can guarantee was presented to countless people who lost real work. I'm sure they found that real reassuring.

passwordoops 3y ago
As an aside we once set a labmates' welcome screen to the blue screen of death. We let him angrily restart the laptop 3 times before letting on. This predated the annoying :( which I think would have led him to break the computer after the second try
- 13of40 3y ago
  Back in the day, the blue screen and unhandled exception messages in Windows had some actual useful information in them, like the memory address where it happened, some arguments passed to the bugcheck routine, etc. Back then the I-cannot-program-my-VCR crowd used to call tech support and scream about all the "egghead nonsense gobbledygook" on their screen. And since there's orders of magnitude more of them than there are people ready to fire up their kernel debugger and make use of that info, guess which tack the UX took?
- ambigious7777 3y ago
  Reminds me of the time when we switched around all the icons on the desktop (ie chrome => file explorer, recycle bin => vlc) of my friend's laptop. He eventually gave up and launched the programs from command line.
ragnese 3y ago
I mentioned in another comment that the "apology" and humanization of the error messages doesn't bother me, but I have to admit that the frowny face and the infantilizing messages DOES make me irrationally irritated.

troupe 3y ago

My preference is to get the raw details I need. I'd rather see a stack trace than, "We are sorry but there seems to have been some type of error." However, I can also see a case for the other point of view. In working on large enterprise systems that are being used by users who are not technical, the "we" helps reinforce the idea that things aren't outside of the users locus of control. There is an whole group of people employed by the organization behind the scenes that are part of the way the overall system works. So the "we" emphasizes that the system, the error, the people who write the system, the person trying to use the system, are all part of whatever they are trying to do together.

layer8 3y ago

“We” is a Microsoft-ism they started with Windows 10. Yes, it is horrible, because it puts the user into a minority position against an anonymous “we” that apparently controls the system. It has a belittling and patronizing tone that emphasizes the user being powerless and non-autonomous, who instead has to be taken care of by, and is at the mercy of, the anonymous “we”.

ragnese 3y ago
But isn't all of that 100% true? You ARE at the whim of Microsoft. Microsoft DOES control your computer if you are running Windows.
iguanayou 3y ago
At least they stopped putting "My" in front of everything.
- bitwize 3y ago
  But that was just brutal honesty: it's not your computer anymore.
  - Log_out_ 3y ago
    My Lions! My Tigers! My Bears! Oh my!
  - kmoser 3y ago
    I've never liked the "my" prefix for labels because it wasn't immediately obvious whether "my" referred to me, or to the person/company/entity/software which created the thing. This is particularly annoying when error messages are written from the point of view of an entity or fictitious person, e.g. "Sorry, I wasn't able to..." but things on screen are labeled "My..." Is "me" the user or the software?
    - bitwize 3y ago
      Back in the Windows 9x days, Windows didn't refer to itself with first-person pronouns. That was a development that occurred a few years after "My Computer" morphed into "This PC".

bruce343434 3y ago

"File could not be found; apologies have hereby been made"

lelandfe 3y ago
“Finding-related incident has occurred during browsing”

ragnese 3y ago

I'm also an old fogey by some metrics, but I don't relate to that sentiment very much. I think that using "we" and "apologizing" is fair for most user-facing applications. It's kind of like the old adage: the customer is always right. Obviously the user wanted to accomplish something, and tried something to achieve it, but your software couldn't figure out what they wanted or didn't have enough information to do it, etc. So, it's kind of like a store clerk saying "I'm sorry; we're all out of that color dress." Now, I would say this kind of "polite", human-centric, UI is not appropriate for e.g., sysadmin stuff like coreutils. I think it's perfectly fine if `cat /some/file` errors by saying "That file doesn't exist. Get bent." Also, just to inject some unrelated cynicism... To your example about updating, I think with how pushy companies like Microsoft are with updates, it might actually be more accurate for them to say "We are updating your computer and enacting our will with your equipment."

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
zilti 3y ago
> It's kind of like the old adage: the customer is always right. And that BS is exactly why we have all those entitled adult babies now.

jvanderbot 3y ago

There's a difference of what is broke that matters. I'm playing out cases in my head ... If I visit a website, "They" broke. If my phone crashes, "It" broke. My phone shouldn't say "we" - I don't grok the idea of people in there. The website should say "we" - It's an organization presenting data, and I do believe there are people behind it. My car shouldn't say "we" - My car is an "it", a thing that lives in my garage and I drive around. NVIDIA drivers shouldn't say "we" - I'm running the program. I'm the agent. If anything, when I check for drivers, it should say "they have an update ready". The program is executing on my machine. It's mine. "They" are the people who publish updates. "We" (program and I) go fetch and install them. But programs don't have agency - so if "it" can't fetch "their" update, then "Update could not be fetched" conveys all the info I need to know. Then there's the "simpy" problem of always apologizing. For this reason I like TFA's final recommendation: > Use the word “sorry” only in error messages that result in serious problems for the user (for example, data loss or inability to use the computer). Don’t apologize if the issue occurred during the normal functioning of the program (for example, if the user needs to wait for a network connection to be found).

loloquwowndueo 3y ago

“apologies, the site cannot be found”

karmakaze 3y ago

I also don't like renaming well-known things based on a theme or analogies that are carried way too far and gets in the way of simple communication.

eschneider 3y ago

"The computer." Don't want to imply that it's "their" computer.

bemusedthrow75 3y ago

The automated railway announcements in the UK say "I'm sorry". Rubs me up the wrong way, because there would be no way to identify who the individual apologising is. However, I think error messages should apologise in the rare situation that there is no constructive, helpful, language-neutral way to convey an actionable response in an error.

seabass-labrax 3y ago
Do they? I've just spent most of today on the railways, as it happens, but I didn't hear that despite some disruption; indeed I've never heard it. During my journey today, the Eurostar staff apologised over the tannoy personally, and the Great Western train manager personally announced a delay with great enthusiasm on a recent trip ("we are running three minutes behind schedule; we apologise for any inconvenience or disruption"). I'm curious to know which line/operator you've heard this on. I've got my own pet-peeve automated announcement though: "This is a National Rail security announcement..." Oh no! Is there a riot on the platform? Was someone assaulted? No, listen further: "...If you see something that doesn't look right, text the British Transport Police on 61016". Like, that's not even a real announcement, and doesn't every passenger know the number by now?? P.S. I feel that it's right to note for those unfamiliar with the English railways that GWR are probably the most effective train operator in England, and that the delay I had wasn't their fault. Eurostar, having almost exclusive use of HS1 and the Channel Tunnel, don't have that excuse available, but they were still impeccablely professional.
- bemusedthrow75 3y ago
  It may have changed recently but it was a feature of on-station announcements (as opposed to on-train) in the south east for years.
  - seabass-labrax 3y ago
    Interesting; thank you for responding. I tend to keep my connections somewhat unreasonably short, so maybe I just don't wait around long enough to hear that announcement :)

grotorea 3y ago

> And without "we", there can of course be no "we apologize". What about passive voice for the software error, then apologize with we in the name of whoever developed that software?

uxjw 3y ago

I did dial-up tech support for MSN 20 years ago and was trained to say "We" instead of "I." It was probably meant to make users feel like there are many people ready to help them, or avoid personal responsibility. I still use "we" whenever I'm emailing clients, except now it's to sound like there is more than just me in this dept.

photochemsyn 3y ago

I like the idea of haiku error messages (as in Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett's Good Omens). "Site not found" becomes, with some LLM assistance: Amidst cyberspace vast, Site elusive, lost in void, Unreachable code.

jerbear4328 3y ago
That isn't a valid haiku, and it's much less clear, in my opinion. If you give me a nice big "404 Not Found" up front and then include a poem, HTTP cat, or easter egg, that would give the page personality while still being immediately useful.
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  Of course, it is still both a 404 HTTP response and a proper HTML webpage - so both the user agent and the website have an opportunity to explain the error. If both of them try to be funny, though, that's no good.
rzzzt 3y ago
A Salon article inspired many examples from readers: https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/error-haiku.en.html https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/error-haiku.en.html (I could swear that one of these appeared in BeOS' NetPositive browser if you visited a site without network access... but now I'm not so sure.) Edit: now I'm sure: https://8325.org/haiku/ https://8325.org/haiku/
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  I find this one hilarious, and rather relevant to this thread: "Errors have occurred. We won't tell you where or why. Lazy programmers." Thank you for sharing them :)

ukuina 3y ago

Or, go the other way and slightly insult the user's intelligence: "You cannot perform that action on that selection because it would violate causality" Strictly professionally, of course.

Zondartul 3y ago

I think it can be acceptable to use "I" in UI messages. After all, the app is the one doing things, and it's what I'm interacting with, so it would be fine to have a message like "I'm going to do X" or "I tried to do X but Y", or "I can't find the Z on this computer"

horsh1 3y ago

"File not found. Apologies are made". "The computer is being updated. Grief and sorrow."

patrick451 3y ago

> he insertion of "We" feels like an imposition; the company who wrote the code reaching in and enacting their will with your equipment, using your screen as their soapbox. It's icky. But they are reaching into your computer and enacting their will. The passive voice strikes me as even ickier when it is used to amorphously shift blame into the ether. I would much rather read "sorry, we fucked and formatted your harddisk because we suck at programming" than "an error occurred and all your data is gone". Take some damn responsibility.