This 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.
Now imagine if that error said 'Error 11: A memory error occurred. Your program may be faulty or misbehaving. Contact your software vendor." That's miles better than what most things provide.
That one's a good example of why these things are hard. The user could have been running 5 different programs, any one of which caused this error, and MacOS can't point the finger at anyone. Not to mention that the problem could be MacOS itself, or the user being a dunce who misconfigured something. I'm not sure if that error can occur without 3rd party software being involved, but if it can, then that error message might need to be even more vague, helping the user even less. Not to mention it could just be faulty hardware.
A paper manual offering troubleshooting steps for each error would be really helpful. Just 'Error 11. Consult your manual.' and the manual actually telling you what the problem could be is also miles better than what we usually get.
> The user could have been running 5 different programs, any one of which caused this error, and MacOS can't point the finger at anyone.
It's still an example why it's worth giving your users a fighting chance. MacOS may not know enough to point the finger at anyone, but the user knows what they were doing at that moment, and even if they were not paying attention, they might start now. They'll realize if something is off. Or, after 10th time they get this error, they'll connect the dots and realize it's always happening when application X is running and they try to launch Y.
Or maybe sometimes they won't. Maybe they'll form a story and maybe it'll be all bullshit, or maybe good enough. Either way, the important part is, the user retains agency in the process. Giving people information is how they can become self-sufficient users and trust technology more.
This was 30 years ago, it was Mac OS classic with co-operative multitasking and zero inter-process memory protection, when the error comes up the only option was "restart" (the computer, not the task).
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.
And they've only got worse: "Something went wrong". Well no shit Sherlock, I can tell something went wrong because the thing I tried to do didn't work. Possibly the single most useless error message every created, and it's everywhere. Most of the worst-case error messages in the quoted response are still better than this one.
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".
> Customer service has different meanings. Personally I prefer good, simple and effective documentation. I hate having to use a phone to explain problems. It's ok to do it in person, but not my preferred way.
Same. If things have gotten to the point where I need to talk to a human (either or phone or mail) to be made whole, the product has already failed and I should look for alternatives the next time I need whatever it may be.
> Wireless alerts are completely optional since GrapheneOS adds a toggle for the otherwise mandatory presidential alert type. This is particularly useful in Canada where the government abuses the system and sends every type of alert as a presidential alert to stop users from being able to opt out of weather and amber alerts.
I wonder if GrapheneOS or someone modifying it could add a feature that would filter with keyword matching or something to determine what priority an alter should actually be.
I actually made this patch a while ago on lineageos but lost the patch. It is a very invasive change where I filtered for the world amber and the French equivalent...
"We've got some great people, phenomenal people, up there in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver... we're working with them on ideas for what it's gonna be like when I'm their President. Gonna be the best era ever in Canadian history. You're gonna see success like you wouldn't believe."
Most websites are not a piece of art made only for its own sake an beauty (or lack thereof). The unstated intention of most websites is to transfer information to the reader. Making the reader dizzy, or hiding some of that information behind animations or stupid headers does not aid information transfer.
I'm mostly with you, but I don't feel the need for separate mouse buttons, so long as the touchpad can give me feedback on clicks. If the whole touchpad is the button, and two finger clicks work for right click, then that's all right. Took some getting used to, but it works fine now. Tap to click though, I've never got that to not be annoying.
I've tried the clickpads. Requiring a more deliberate action to click is good; requiring an absurd amount of force compared to what's needed to push a mouse button is bad. And the "hinged" feeling where it's obviously attached on only one side feels bad, as well.
It's possible that a much better clickpad could be usable, where it's anchored in a non-hinged fashion so it pushes evenly, and the force required to click is comparable to a mouse button.
Not sure exactly which company you are referring to, but Apples clickpads haven’t had any moving parts for a long time—there is just a force sensor and a physical actuator to make it vibrate when tapped that makes it feel as if it moved. But it does not actually move, so there’s nothing to push unevenly about it. It can be a bit uncanny to use when the machine is powered off since the haptic feedback is designed just to trick the brain into thinking it moved.
Those aren't "clickpads"; they don't click. Some of the older ones had a "force touch" where you could push harder to do something different, but the amount of force required for that seemed excessive.
I'm talking about a touchpad that physically actuates like a button.
I believe all newer models still do that too since 2016, but just not the UI (force touch was mostly only on phones in my recollection). It can be used as a fairly accurate kitchen scale even: https://github.com/KrishKrosh/TrackWeight
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