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150 Chapter 5 Understanding how interfaces affect users

Below are some common error messages expressed in harsh computer jargon that can be
quite threatening and offensive. Rewrite them in more usable, useful, and friendly language
that would help users to understand the cause of the problem and how to fix it. For each
message, imagine a specific context where such a problem might occur.
SYNTAX ERROR
INVALID FILENAME
INVALID DATA
APPLICATION ZETA HAS UNEXPECTEDLY QUIT DUE TO A TYPE 4 ERROR
DRIVE ERROR: ABORT, RETRY OR FAIL? 1

Comment How specific the given advice can be will depend on the kind of system it is. Here are sugges- I
tions for hypothetical systems.
SYNTAX ERROR-There is a problem with the way you have typed the command.
Check for typos.
INVALID FILENAME-Choose another file name that uses only 20 characters or less
and is lower case without any spaces.
INVALID DATA-There is a problem with the data you have entered. Try again,
checking that no decimal points are used.
APPLICATION ZETA HAS UNEXPECTEDLY QUIT DUE TO A TYPE 4
ERROR-The application you were working on crashed because of an internal mem-
ory problem. Try rebooting and increasing the amount of allocated memory to the
application.
DRIVE ERROR: ABORT, RETRY OR FAIL?-There is a problem with reading your
disk. Try inserting it again.

3. Overburdening the user
Cause: Upgrading software so that users are required to carry out excessive house-
keeping tasks
Level of frustration: Medium to high
Another pervasive frustrating user experience is upgrading a piece of software. It is
now common for users to'have to go through this housekeeping task on a regular
basis, especially if they run a number of applications. More often than not it tends
to be a real chore, being very time-consuming and requiring the user to do a whole
range of things, like resetting preferences, sorting out extensions, checking other
configurations, and learning new ways of doing things. Often, problems can de-
velop that are not detected till some time later, when a user tries an operation that
worked fine before but mysteriously now fails. A common problem is that settings
get lost or do not copy over properly during the upgrade. As the number of options
for customizing an application or operating system increases for each new upgrade,
so, too, does the headache of having to reset all the relevant preferences. Wading
through myriads of dialog boxes and menus and figuring out which checkbox to