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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?"
What if eventually any job you can do can be done better and more cheaply by an AI? What should happen to you then?
I hope the AIs or "Posthumans" keep us around as well-cared-for pets because they are fond of us (or think we're cute). I doubt that enslaving and mistreating the first few AIs is going to help improve the odds of that scenario happening.
Or setting a precedent that just because some people are stupid/ignorant it's OK to mistreat them (see the electroshock proponents above).
I'm personally guilty of treating ignorant/stupid people badly every now and then. But I suggest that it's not something one should aspire to do, and it's something that you have to fight against.
Many people think they're very intelligent. But high intelligence is overrated.
You've never kicked your girlfriend in her vagina, I'm assuming. Oh wait, Slashdot..girlfriend..never mind!
Self-pity my ass - I was lucky. My treatment worked perfectly and I don't consider it a problem, although the medications have some shitty side-effects after 20 years.
I stand by my comment. Some dimwit modded it troll which just helps illustrate the level of ignorance. The anecdote was personal, but the comment was not made for my sake.
The comment was out of sympathy to others whose condition cannot be treated and who are often the subject of callous ridicule rather than compassion. The level of ignorance about epilepsy is stunning to this day. I was once on the ignorant side and then life decided to teach me a lesson. The lesson was that epilepsy can be a serious illness and epileptics should not be the brunt of jokes - they did not chose to have the condition and it often seriously mitigates and sometimes totally destroys any quality of life. Some of those epileptics wish they were dead, some suffer brain damage, so they don't have to think about it and, yes a very small per centage do die from it. Do you still find it funny? Do you find such jokes funny if we change epilepsy to cancer? Is it funny to make jokes about people with missing limbs?
The point is this (stated first person only in order to get the message through some thick skulls out there):
I can make jokes my medical problem if I so chose. You, on the other hand, have no business doing so.