Locked out for five minutes

@DanielTome: Really annoyed with the user experience of Adobe Online Creative Festival (login image) #ux #login #fail

Locking a user out for logging in when they have an active session is not very friendly. How about asking the user if they want to cancel the old session?

Something happened

Tweeted by wunderwood

Modified during suspend mode

The file on my computer was modified while my computer was in suspend mode?

Or was it the file on the server that was modified?

Why must I resave the file on the server if what I have on my computer differs from what is on the server? I don't have the version on the server on my computer in order to save it?

Don't ask users to click OK when it is not OK

@benshinobi: Best error message i've seen come out of my own comp...I like the BAD confirmation box...

I wish more error dialogs had BAD buttons instead of OK buttons.

The reason is not clear

@stevenjj2002: Quite possibly the best error message I've ever gotten.

Insane value

Tweeted by oldmantone

The not-so-automatic automatic backup

NTI Shadow is a backup program advertised to automatically backup data to a NAS file server as files are changed.

However, it appears that the designers of the software failed to seriously consider that one may be using a mobile computer that does not always have access to the network file server. I don't think I should have to manually restart backup jobs every time I connect and disconnect from the network.

Does color matter?

Go ahead. Select a location on the map. Don't recognize the map?

The fine folks at Adobe Online Festival are being creative. The water is white and the land is blue. How's that for intuitive?

Runing processes after install

The progress bar hasn't moved in a half hour. Is the install complete?

Did a lawyer write this?

@sliffy: Did a lawyer write this error message?


Not a lawyer. A computer nerd. ;)

Do not honour

@DanielTome: another #ux fail when trying to pay a fine online. What does "do not honour" mean in this case?

Arrivals

Tweeted by dyakovich.

Catch me if you can

Geordie Keitt reports:

Google has added Gmail Tasks to the suite of Gmail tools, but it might not be ready for prime time. When I open the pop-out tasks window, select a task to view its details, and then select the dropdown list of task lists to change the list it is on, the list of lists pops up above the control, then below the control, then above the control, then below…


It appears to depend on exactly where on the down-arrow I click. This makes me suspicious that there are other twitchy behaviors laying in wait for me. I’d be interested to see if this is the tip of an iceberg of deeper problems.

Ambiguous authentication

osma: updating my computer. apparently one of many updates has an issue, but which one? #packagekit #fail



Security features like this can be useful in protecting computers from malware but ONLY IF the user is given sufficient information to make intelligent decisions.

MYUSERNAMEWASHERE

Reported by James Grenning:

Chase Healthcare savings Account (HSA) management website.

Exchange Rate

Tweeted by pattex:

Reboot to Save

After making updates to a document in Microsoft Word 2007, I press the Save button.



Configuring? I told it to save.

Seven minutes later, the Microsoft Office setup tells me I need to reboot to complete setup.



What about the changes I wanted to save? Were they saved?  Saving should not require a reboot.

I click the No button. The Setup program starts up again.



Six minutes later, an error dialog appears.

Error 1719.  What does that mean?

Contact my support personnel?  That would be me.



I am not at all OK with having spent the last 13 minutes trying to save a document and getting nowhere -- but I click the OK button anyway.  (Where's the "I'm frustrated and just want to make this error go away" button?)



I now stare at my screen -- uncertain if my document has been saved.

I press the Save button again. The Setup program launches... :(

NCR Errorlevel 0

“ATM Fail” - @TheZeis

Please provide the following to Oracle Support

@dotbart: Ah yes, crystal clear error handling by Oracle

I've got lots of unknown (to me) files on my system. Which ones does Oracle want? ;)

Plan B

"Google Search Error?? First time I have seen that!" - @johntyyk3
 
 

Trust

How about telling me which site is "this site"? How about an option to see what company I "have not chosen to trust"?

How about more options than Yes and No to an ambiguous question?  I'd like to ask some clarifying questions. How about giving me an option to view the certificate information before making a decision to proceed?


A warning without sufficient information to enable me to make an intelligent decision isn't very helpful.

After seeing this a few times, users aren't likely to see a warning worth consideration. Instead they will (mentally) see a prompt that says something like:

Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. 

Never mind the text.

Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Tap "Yes" 

to make this obstacle 

go away 

and continue to

accomplish your task.

Dip your card

Bob Hartman asks:

What if I don't want to get my ATM card wet???

YouTube's highly trained monkeys

love the youtube 500 error   - palassml



That information gibberish at the bottom must be some techie code that is meaninful to highly trained monkeys.

Transposing Highs?

Never!

@sqljohn: thanks for the informative error message ws_ftp

I've been told that no means no; but does never really mean never?

Guess

"You know it's good software when it has a "guess" option in case you are not sure what you want?" - @juanstermonster

Is the computer's guess any better than that of a user who doesn't understand what they are being asked to select?

The Evolution of Bing

sbanwart: From Microsoft Bing, the infamous "object reference not set to an instance of an object" error. EPIC FAIL.

Stuck in a loop

Paul Carvalho reports:

This error message appeared on me when I was trying to install a MS Office update.  It was priceless!  I was stuck in a loop and couldn't install the update. 

Mobile GMail: Where art thou?

There seems to be a problem with mobile GMail.  I don't know what 0x8007054f means but it doesn't seem to be a good thing. I can't get to my email.  Windows Mobile won't let me select and copy text from a dialog. I'm going to have to try to remember this number in order to search for the error code.

A Google search for the code reveals a bunch of results about errors installing Windows XP updates.  No help there. I'll have to wait and read email when I can get to a computer.




I am still getting the error 10 hours later.




Some times I get the above instead of the error 0x8007054f dialog.  I can access other web sites, so I don't think it is a problem with my wireless carrier.




Googling for Gmail and clicking a link in the results gives the same error.




I try a different browser. SkyFire can access the full-featured Gmail.




However, continually zooming and panning to read and write email on the tiny phone screen is going to be cumbersome.

I want my mobile Gmail back.

Update Complete

Update Complete seems like a good thing. So why the warning icon? Should I be concerned?

ATM or public Internet kiosk?

"Hmm... No cash out of this ATM - I do hope that it's at least Windows 2000!" - @MerseyMal



Wonder if I can surf the web from here. ;)

Object reference not set to an instance of an object

Honesty is a good practice

@exoticapple: haha greatest error alert i've seen

While I respect honesty, do they really not know, or did they choose to not code more helpful error reporting?

Catastrophic failure

@RockyMtnPige:Today's funny error message:



I'm beginning to think the Microsoft Office developers don't understand the meaning of catastrophic.

Sharepoint copy

I wanted to move a file in a Sharepoint document library to another location in Sharepoint. I select the option to move it and get the page shown above.

I was expecting to get an option to browse to a destination location. Instead, Sharepoint only gives me an edit field into which I can type a destination URL. Perhaps this is a feature intended to discourage moving of files.

-1 results

"Was searching for iiNet vista sidebar widget... got -1 results found.. Microsoft Live search is fantastic."  - @mainfram

Where's the PDF?

When viewing PDF files attached to emails, Round Cube WebMail resizes itself and the PDF viewer to be as small as possible -- an apparent attempt to conserve screen real estate. ;-)

Computer model predicts warming

@jeroenbo: @Wolfram_Alpha error in results? Today's weather in Nijmegen ...




I think this could really throw off the average temperature... if anyone is still around to care.

agileRequirement.modified

@diegopulido: When I look for examples of helpful error messages (hence a brilliant user experience), I look up to Rally

I'll bet the acceptance tests passed. ;-)

Expectations

possibly the strangest error I've ever seen - mattgrimm

Find the stack trace in the HTML source?

Do developers of the Manfrotto web site really expect consumers looking at camera tripods and tripod heads to view the page source code and look for a stack trace to deal with errors?  And why would a stack trace be output to the user in an HTML file and not be displayed without viewing the source?

How do I contact an administrator?

What is Jahia?

Why should I find a stack trace in source code to send to an unknown site manager if an email has been sent to an administrator?

Clicking the link to return to Jahia -- whatever that may be -- displays the following.


The Manfrotto web site developers must be thinking their photographer users are also web developers who are willing to investigate their software issues. Right? ;)