alt Hacker NewsThis is because error messages have historically been bad, unintelligible, un-actionable, and hard to separate from soft errors that don't actually matter.
'Segmentation fault. Core dumped.'
'Non-fatal error detected. Contact support.'
'An error occurred.'
'An illegal operation was performed.'
'Error 92: Insufficient marmalade.'
'Saving this image as a JPG will not preserve the transparency used in the image. Save anyway?'
'Saving as .docx is not recommended because blah-blah-blah never gonna give you up nor let you down.'
I can't blame any normal user from either not understanding nor giving a shit about any of these. If we'd given users actionable information from day 1, we'd be in a very different world. Even just 'Error 852: Couldn't reach the network. Check your connection to the internet.' does help those who haven't turned of their brains entirely yet.
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The author Terry Pratchett had some of best error messages in his Discworld novels. The Hex computer could produce the following
++?????++ Out of Cheese Error. Redo From Start.
+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++
+++Whoops! Here comes the cheese! +++
Don't blame this one on programming techies. This one is ALL the fault of shitty UI designers abusing modal dialog boxes.
A modal dialog is supposed to be for something damn near irreversible--like about to blow away your application because of error. You are supposed to STOP and go get the guru or you are about to lose, badly.
Unfortunately, UI designers throw them up for everything and people get used to simply clicking "OK" to make them go away so that they can get back to doing their task. So, when the user gets an actual error, they've already blown away the dialog box with information.
Your 'Saving this image as a JPG will not preserve the transparency used in the image. Save anyway?' line is a horrifically excellent example. That is a standard "Save As..." response, and it should NEVER have been. That should have always been under "Export..." as saving should never throw away information and it would be perfectly fine to regenerate a JPG as long as you have the full information still available in the original file.
This is the stuff that infuriates me about the UI designers. Your job is about interactions, first, and pixels, second.
This is because error messages have historically been bad, unintelligible, un-actionable, and hard to separate from soft errors that don't actually matter.
If you ever run into a developer who thinks "something went wrong" is an appropriate error message, have them killed. Then kill their entire family and pets, burn their house down, and plough salt into the ground where it stood. Finally, put up a sign that says "The person who used to live here thought 'something went wrong' is an appropriate error message to display when something goes wrong. Take note of their current situation when you next add an error message to your software".
30 or so years back, one of the Mac magazines had a customer support quote along these lines:
"I don't understand, it says 'System Error Type 11', and no matter how many times I type 11, nothing happens!"