5 ms·

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!

by 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?
    - lolinder 3y ago
      > Nowhere did they state that seeing colors makes them feel like a baby. Actually, that was a pretty reasonable translation of this line into low-brow speech: > a broader, ongoing software infantilization process. Colors can't be sober either, everything has to be colorful, cheerful The connection between these sentences is fairly clear: software is being infantilized and part of that is that everything has to be colorful and cheerful. Hence OP's translation into "seeing colours makes you feel like a baby and cheerful is a bad thing". The translation into more casual language was rhetorically valuable in that it accentuated their broader point about how stuffy the original author sounds. (And yes, I'm intentionally using stuffy language here because the casual language OP used seems to have whooshed.)
      - Ruthalas 3y ago
        For what it's worth, my 'translation' would be, "The strong aversion to less colorful designs seems childish, and may go hand in hand with designs that treat the user as inept. I don't like being treated as inept or incapable." Seems both more likely and more charitable.
        jodrellblank 3y ago
        That's the same thing; "the aversion to less colourful designs seems childish" - no it doesn't. When the Queen of England wore pink, did you say "her aversion to less colourful clothes makes her seem like a child"? When someone buys a red Ferrari do you think they didn't buy a muted gray Ferrari because they seem childish? When a builder drives a yellow JCB do you think they wish for a gray bulldozer because colour is for infants? When Michaelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel do you think it was in a fit of infantile pique that he didn't make it monochrome? When a doctor recommends you eat a rainbow coloured meal of veg, do you think that seems more or less childish than only eating beige mashed potatoes and white fish? When a street sign says 'no entry' do you think the red border makes it look more childish than a black border? When someone has a blue can opener is that more childish than a metal can opener? > "may go hand in hand with designs that treat the user as inept" May, may not. Is orthogonal to. > "I don't like being treated as inept or incapable." What a chain of reasoning. "I don't like being treated as inept (fine), so to remind myself how capable I am I need to not look at colours otherwise I will fantasize that other people are laughing at me (not fine)".
lelandfe 3y ago
404 pages are for some businesses the only place the designers are allowed to add humanity, and they occasionally go buck wild with it
dabinat 3y ago
Another trend on similar lines is putting cutesy / jokey text in mobile app changelogs. The people who don’t care what changed likely have automatic updates switched on anyway and it would be nice for the people who do care to actually know what changed. The worst offender I have found is Lemonade Insurance which doesn’t even tack on the obligatory “bug fixes and performance improvements” at the end. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lemonade-insurance/id1055653645 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lemonade-insurance/id105565364...
blharr 3y ago
Wow, what a website as well. It literally takes 20 seconds to load the homepage for me. And then the background randomly changing color as you scroll? I'm not terribly picky with design, and I get that its more of a design demo, but it is seems so overdone as a whole

by lqet 3y ago

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?
  - lolinder 3y ago
    > Nowhere did they state that seeing colors makes them feel like a baby. Actually, that was a pretty reasonable translation of this line into low-brow speech: > a broader, ongoing software infantilization process. Colors can't be sober either, everything has to be colorful, cheerful The connection between these sentences is fairly clear: software is being infantilized and part of that is that everything has to be colorful and cheerful. Hence OP's translation into "seeing colours makes you feel like a baby and cheerful is a bad thing". The translation into more casual language was rhetorically valuable in that it accentuated their broader point about how stuffy the original author sounds. (And yes, I'm intentionally using stuffy language here because the casual language OP used seems to have whooshed.)
    - Ruthalas 3y ago
      For what it's worth, my 'translation' would be, "The strong aversion to less colorful designs seems childish, and may go hand in hand with designs that treat the user as inept. I don't like being treated as inept or incapable." Seems both more likely and more charitable.
      - jodrellblank 3y ago
        That's the same thing; "the aversion to less colourful designs seems childish" - no it doesn't. When the Queen of England wore pink, did you say "her aversion to less colourful clothes makes her seem like a child"? When someone buys a red Ferrari do you think they didn't buy a muted gray Ferrari because they seem childish? When a builder drives a yellow JCB do you think they wish for a gray bulldozer because colour is for infants? When Michaelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel do you think it was in a fit of infantile pique that he didn't make it monochrome? When a doctor recommends you eat a rainbow coloured meal of veg, do you think that seems more or less childish than only eating beige mashed potatoes and white fish? When a street sign says 'no entry' do you think the red border makes it look more childish than a black border? When someone has a blue can opener is that more childish than a metal can opener? > "may go hand in hand with designs that treat the user as inept" May, may not. Is orthogonal to. > "I don't like being treated as inept or incapable." What a chain of reasoning. "I don't like being treated as inept (fine), so to remind myself how capable I am I need to not look at colours otherwise I will fantasize that other people are laughing at me (not fine)".

lelandfe 3y ago

404 pages are for some businesses the only place the designers are allowed to add humanity, and they occasionally go buck wild with it

dabinat 3y ago

Another trend on similar lines is putting cutesy / jokey text in mobile app changelogs. The people who don’t care what changed likely have automatic updates switched on anyway and it would be nice for the people who do care to actually know what changed. The worst offender I have found is Lemonade Insurance which doesn’t even tack on the obligatory “bug fixes and performance improvements” at the end. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lemonade-insurance/id1055653645 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lemonade-insurance/id105565364...

blharr 3y ago

Wow, what a website as well. It literally takes 20 seconds to load the homepage for me. And then the background randomly changing color as you scroll? I'm not terribly picky with design, and I get that its more of a design demo, but it is seems so overdone as a whole