How Do You Get Users To Read Error Messages?

A BOFH writes "The longer I do desktop support, the more it becomes obvious that my users don't read anything that appears on their screen. Instead, they memorize a series of buttons to press to get whatever result they want and if anything unexpected happens, they're completely lost. Error logs help a lot, but they have their limits. I've been toying with a few ideas, but I don't know if any of them will work and I was hoping my fellow Slashdotters could point me in the right direction. For example, I was thinking about creating icons or logos to identify specific errors. They might not remember that an error is about 'uninitialized data' but they might be more able to remember that they got the 'puppy error' if I showed a puppy picture next to the error message. Or for times when finding images is too time consuming, you could create simple logos from letters, numbers, symbols, colors, or shapes, so you could have the 'red 5' error or 'blue square' error (or any combination of those elements). I've even wondered if it would be possible to expand that to cover the other senses, for example, playing a unique sound with the error. Unfortunately, haptic and olfactory feedback aren't readily available. I like to think that my users would remember the error that caused them to get a swift kick in the balls. And if they forgot it anyhow, I could always help them reproduce it. Does anyone else have experience with ideas like these? Did it work?"

Comments

Re:Waste of time.

[oscartheduck]

Try clicking on the dialog box, hitting ctrl-c, then opening notepad and hitting ctrl-v. It's non-intuitive that you don't have to highlight the text, but it normally works.

Re:Electric Shock

[houghi]

They lie because you ask the wrong questions. Do not ask if they see something. Ask WHAT they see.
Another reason for lying is that they have been trained that aswering "I do not know" is wrong.

I rather have somebody saying "I do not know." then somebody saying "I know". With the first I know I can go in babysteps and they will listen and do as I say. e.g. What do you see in the lower left of your screen "Uh, start" OK, click on that, what do you see now? Please read out everthing. The moment they are at Programs: Please click on programs, what do you see now, please read everything. At the end: Is that all or are there some signs below that? OK, click on that double arrow, what do you see now?

Might look slower then saying :Please go to Start, Programs, ... But in the end it will save you time.

Once I was asked if I thought they were stupid. The answer (al lie) was that _I_ was stupid and wanted to be sure I did not make a mistake.