#errormessages — Public Fediverse posts

Ah, yes, the profound wisdom of error messages 🍋✨: "Just a moment...Enable #JavaScript and #cookies to continue." Because clearly, the best way to solve life's problems is by blaming the user for their tech settings 🤦‍♂️.
https://wix-ux.com/when-life-gives-you-lemons-write-better-error-messages-46c5223e1a2f #errorMessages #userBlame #techHumor #lifeLessons #HackerNews #ngated

A New Best Practice for User Friendly 404 Page Design?

https://kerrick.blog/posts/2025/a-new-best-practice-for-user-friendly-404-pages/

To the user-interface designers and programmers out there: If the unfortunate event happens and you have to show an error message, please make sure the message is actually helpful for identifying the issue. You might think that hiding technical details is user-friendly, but in fact, the opposite is true. Do not make us guess what is wrong, tell us what you know!

You might be afraid that this confuses users who are less tech-savvy. Not necessarily, if you give them a rough idea first (maybe in a more emphasized font) and then continue with the details you have (maybe in a smaller font). I am quite sure users are able to ignore the parts they do not understand, and if they need support, at least the person giving support has something to work with.

Some simple examples:

❌ "Cannot connect to bluetooth device."
❓ "Okay, but why?"
✅ "Cannot connect to bluetooth device 'foo' (maybe it is turned off?): The device does not respond."

❌ "Cannot open file."
❓ "Which file? And again, why?"
✅ "Cannot open file 'testfile.txt' for reading: Permission denied"

❌ "Something went wrong when trying to load the website."
❓ "Again, what's the problem? Is the network interface down? Is the DNS server down? Is the target server itself down? Give me a hint, please!"
✅ "Cannot load the website. Maybe your computer is not connected to the Internet? Details: No route to host (192.168.10.1) when attempting to connect to the DNS server."

This is nothing new. In fact, it is just an adaptation of the top-down writing approach we also use when writing scientific papers, for example: You begin with a rough overview and give increasingly more details later in the text.
But do not omit the details completely!

#usability #userinterfaces #userinterfacedesign #errormessages #programming #writing #technicalwriting

To the user-interface designers and programmers out there: If the unfortunate event happens and you have to show an error message, please make sure the message is actually helpful for identifying the issue. You might think that hiding technical details is user-friendly, but in fact, the opposite is true. Do not make us guess what is wrong, tell us what you know!

You might be afraid that this confuses users who are less tech-savvy. Not necessarily, if you give them a rough idea first (maybe in a more emphasized font) and then continue with the details you have (maybe in a smaller font). I am quite sure users are able to ignore the parts they do not understand, and if they need support, at least the person giving support has something to work with.

Some simple examples:

❌ "Cannot connect to bluetooth device."
❓ "Okay, but why?"
✅ "Cannot connect to bluetooth device 'foo' (maybe it is turned off?): The device does not respond."

❌ "Cannot open file."
❓ "Which file? And again, why?"
✅ "Cannot open file 'testfile.txt' for reading: Permission denied"

❌ "Something went wrong when trying to load the website."
❓ "Again, what's the problem? Is the network interface down? Is the DNS server down? Is the target server itself down? Give me a hint, please!"
✅ "Cannot load the website. Maybe your computer is not connected to the Internet? Details: No route to host (192.168.10.1) when attempting to connect to the DNS server."

This is nothing new. In fact, it is just an adaptation of the top-down writing approach we also use when writing scientific papers, for example: You begin with a rough overview and give increasingly more details later in the text.
But do not omit the details completely!

#usability #userinterfaces #userinterfacedesign #errormessages #programming #writing #technicalwriting

To the user-interface designers and programmers out there: If the unfortunate event happens and you have to show an error message, please make sure the message is actually helpful for identifying the issue. You might think that hiding technical details is user-friendly, but in fact, the opposite is true. Do not make us guess what is wrong, tell us what you know!

You might be afraid that this confuses users who are less tech-savvy. Not necessarily, if you give them a rough idea first (maybe in a more emphasized font) and then continue with the details you have (maybe in a smaller font). I am quite sure users are able to ignore the parts they do not understand, and if they need support, at least the person giving support has something to work with.

Some simple examples:

❌ "Cannot connect to bluetooth device."
❓ "Okay, but why?"
✅ "Cannot connect to bluetooth device 'foo' (maybe it is turned off?): The device does not respond."

❌ "Cannot open file."
❓ "Which file? And again, why?"
✅ "Cannot open file 'testfile.txt' for reading: Permission denied"

❌ "Something went wrong when trying to load the website."
❓ "Again, what's the problem? Is the network interface down? Is the DNS server down? Is the target server itself down? Give me a hint, please!"
✅ "Cannot load the website. Maybe your computer is not connected to the Internet? Details: No route to host (192.168.10.1) when attempting to connect to the DNS server."

This is nothing new. In fact, it is just an adaptation of the top-down writing approach we also use when writing scientific papers, for example: You begin with a rough overview and give increasingly more details later in the text.
But do not omit the details completely!

#usability #userinterfaces #userinterfacedesign #errormessages #programming #writing #technicalwriting

To the user-interface designers and programmers out there: If the unfortunate event happens and you have to show an error message, please make sure the message is actually helpful for identifying the issue. You might think that hiding technical details is user-friendly, but in fact, the opposite is true. Do not make us guess what is wrong, tell us what you know!

You might be afraid that this confuses users who are less tech-savvy. Not necessarily, if you give them a rough idea first (maybe in a more emphasized font) and then continue with the details you have (maybe in a smaller font). I am quite sure users are able to ignore the parts they do not understand, and if they need support, at least the person giving support has something to work with.

Some simple examples:

❌ "Cannot connect to bluetooth device."
❓ "Okay, but why?"
✅ "Cannot connect to bluetooth device 'foo' (maybe it is turned off?): The device does not respond."

❌ "Cannot open file."
❓ "Which file? And again, why?"
✅ "Cannot open file 'testfile.txt' for reading: Permission denied"

❌ "Something went wrong when trying to load the website."
❓ "Again, what's the problem? Is the network interface down? Is the DNS server down? Is the target server itself down? Give me a hint, please!"
✅ "Cannot load the website. Maybe your computer is not connected to the Internet? Details: No route to host (192.168.10.1) when attempting to connect to the DNS server."

This is nothing new. In fact, it is just an adaptation of the top-down writing approach we also use when writing scientific papers, for example: You begin with a rough overview and give increasingly more details later in the text.
But do not omit the details completely!

#usability #userinterfaces #userinterfacedesign #errormessages #programming #writing #technicalwriting

To the user-interface designers and programmers out there: If the unfortunate event happens and you have to show an error message, please make sure the message is actually helpful for identifying the issue. You might think that hiding technical details is user-friendly, but in fact, the opposite is true. Do not make us guess what is wrong, tell us what you know!

You might be afraid that this confuses users who are less tech-savvy. Not necessarily, if you give them a rough idea first (maybe in a more emphasized font) and then continue with the details you have (maybe in a smaller font). I am quite sure users are able to ignore the parts they do not understand, and if they need support, at least the person giving support has something to work with.

Some simple examples:

:X: "Cannot connect to bluetooth device."
:question: "Okay, but why?"
:white_check_mark: "Cannot connect to bluetooth device 'foo' (maybe it is turned off?): The device does not respond."

:X: "Cannot open file."
:question: "Which file? And again, why?"
:white_check_mark: "Cannot open file 'testfile.txt' for reading: Permission denied"

:X: "Something went wrong when trying to load the website."
:question: "Again, what's the problem? Is the network interface down? Is the DNS server down? Is the target server itself down? Give me a hint, please!"
:white_check_mark: "Cannot load the website. Maybe your computer is not connected to the Internet? Details: No route to host (192.168.10.1) when attempting to connect to the DNS server."

This is nothing new. In fact, it is just an adaptation of the top-down writing approach we also use when writing scientific papers, for example: You begin with a rough overview and give increasingly more details later in the text.
But do not omit the details completely!

#usability #userinterfaces #userinterfacedesign #errormessages #programming #writing

Deleted the database and recreated it from scratch (rather than updating it) and "page 599 is on free list with type 13", "PANIC: Invalid argument" and "Error string not specified yet" have all gone away. So apparently they mean "I don't like the existing database but can't handle it cleanly" 😐

#Apache #Apache2 #SysAdminProblems #ErrorMessages

🚀🧠 "Large Language Models Are Improving Exponentially," they proclaimed, as their servers collapsed under the weight of their own irony—403 Forbidden! The real exponential growth here is in error messages. 😆👌
https://spectrum.ieee.org/large-language-model-performance #LargeLanguageModels #ExponentialGrowth #ErrorMessages #TechIrony #AITrends #HackerNews #ngated

✨ Breaking News: #Urea spontaneously forms when a prestigious university's website has a nervous breakdown and forgets how to website. 🖥️🔍 ETH Zürich: Offering top-notch education in error messages and page-not-found studies since 2020! 🎓🚫
https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2025/06/how-urea-forms-spontaneously.html #BreakingNews #ETHZürich #ErrorMessages #PageNotFound #HackerNews #ngated

🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨: The latest groundbreaking #innovation in data processing - a CSV tool that does absolutely nothing because it's too busy being "unavailable" 🤦‍♂️. Finally, a service that promises to revolutionize how you stare at error messages! 📉🔒
https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9pfcrwp46v22?hl=en-US&gl=US #CSVtool #Nothingness #ErrorMessages #DataProcessing #HackerNews #ngated

Just improved the display of error messages in Kitten¹.

They should be far more robust now.

Run `kitten update` to get the latest.

:kitten:💕

¹ https://codeberg.org/kitten/app

#Kitten #errorMessages #stackTrace #web #dev #JavaScript #nodeJS