Have you ever worked in an environment powered by Windows-based computers, and Microsoft software? Have you ever spoken with any user in such an environment about their experience with errors like the ones you described, and how easy or difficult it was to solve them?
I am not doing the whole passive aggressive argument where you refuse to say what your issue is and hold a clear conversation so you can try and seem like the winner and claim that I am an idiot because you have misunderstood my comment.
But to answer the specific questions posted:
Have you ever worked in an environment powered by Windows-based computers, and Microsoft software?
Yes, it has been my job for fifteen years.
Have you ever spoken with any user in such an environment about their experience with errors like the ones you described, and how easy or difficult it was to solve them?
Not only do I speak with them several times a workday, I am usually the one solving said problems meaning I get to experience it all.
Fair enough, and I appreciate the clarification. That actually reinforces my point. You and I both work with people who use Windows daily and encounter these verbose errors—but they almost never understand them. They don’t use these messages to develop troubleshooting skills—they just get stuck and frustrated.
So while I get the appeal of a detailed error message in theory, in practice, it doesn’t help most users learn anything. If anything, it just creates more dependency on people like us to fix things for them.
Thank you for accepting my initial rant, I am all for a proper discussion.
I get what you mean, and while true that most people won’t get better at troubleshooting because of a verbose error message, even back in the Windows 95/98 days where you had verbose error messages, most people would still not be capable of understanding them, myself included at that time.
But my point is that the small minority of people who would start troubleshooting the stuff, myself included these days, would be vastly more helped by a verbose error message than a generic “Whops! Something went wrong, please wait!”
Modern software are not even giving people the same initial chances to troubleshoot the issue as older software did.
Have you ever worked in an environment powered by Windows-based computers, and Microsoft software? Have you ever spoken with any user in such an environment about their experience with errors like the ones you described, and how easy or difficult it was to solve them?
I am not doing the whole passive aggressive argument where you refuse to say what your issue is and hold a clear conversation so you can try and seem like the winner and claim that I am an idiot because you have misunderstood my comment.
But to answer the specific questions posted:
Yes, it has been my job for fifteen years.
Not only do I speak with them several times a workday, I am usually the one solving said problems meaning I get to experience it all.
My point stands, I don’t even see yours.
Fair enough, and I appreciate the clarification. That actually reinforces my point. You and I both work with people who use Windows daily and encounter these verbose errors—but they almost never understand them. They don’t use these messages to develop troubleshooting skills—they just get stuck and frustrated.
So while I get the appeal of a detailed error message in theory, in practice, it doesn’t help most users learn anything. If anything, it just creates more dependency on people like us to fix things for them.
Thank you for accepting my initial rant, I am all for a proper discussion.
I get what you mean, and while true that most people won’t get better at troubleshooting because of a verbose error message, even back in the Windows 95/98 days where you had verbose error messages, most people would still not be capable of understanding them, myself included at that time.
But my point is that the small minority of people who would start troubleshooting the stuff, myself included these days, would be vastly more helped by a verbose error message than a generic “Whops! Something went wrong, please wait!”
Modern software are not even giving people the same initial chances to troubleshoot the issue as older software did.