[tomc1985]

Kind of like how Windows' first-time boot-up greets you with a flat (and totally inappropriate) "Hi"

Like fucking seriously, not even "Hello"? "Hi" is how I greet the coworker I don't really even like that much. Whenever I see this I think of the Argonian NPCs from Oblivion, who would also greet you with a very flat "Hi"

"Greetings," "Salutations," even "Welcome!" would be a better choice here.

[Joker_vD]

Windows XP used to have "Welcome". It was a better choice... in the English version, that is. Apparently properly translating that word was difficult because e.g. in Russian version it said something that'd be roughly equivalent to "a welcoming" in English: they've used the word that means "greeting" but can not by itself serve as a greeting. The overall effect was that you were left mildly puzzled: "did they just forget to put an actual greeting in there or?.."

[mananaysiempre]

What software translators (who are usually outside contractors) get is a list of strings with no context, no opportunity to ask what was really meant (including part of speech—blame English—and the intended meaning of this or that %s), and frozen code even if the programmers screwed up (show of hands—ever built up a sentence out of interpolated parts? there, you screwed up).

If you’re lucky, you get English string IDs (and not Chinese or numeric ones). If you’re lucky, the list is complete and in order (and not stripped down to only the untranslated parts so you don’t see how much the agency is avoiding paying you). If you’re lucky, the customer has an localizaton QA department (i.e. a couple of guys per language) which will walk through the UI to try and find the most obvious screwups (and won’t not just merge the Trados back into the source and run the resource compiler).

Every professional involved understands it’s impossible to get a good translation that way. None of them can do anything about it, because the agency will just switch to a less picky one. The good ones try to make something of what they’re given; the bad ones just give up. Almost none of them actually use localized software; almost every one of them looks on wistfully when you show them the Gnome sources with the paragraph-long TRANSLATORS: explanations for every other string. (That’s why Crowdin and Transifex drive me into such rage, BTW—they essentially reproduce the commercial broken-by-design process for hobby developers.)

You know what the most recent innovation is? Have the translator edit a machine translation.

Give your translator something to work with. And for goodness’s sake, if you can afford it, find a couple of freelancers and listen to them—that’s who is going to do the work anyway, might as well give them the whole sum and not the ≤ 30% they will get after the agencies’ cut. (Yes, a small but sizeable portion of candidates will be blatantly incompetent and/or try to screw you over. Duh. It’s a freelancer market.)

[mr_mitm]

Zoom used to translate "Quote" (as in "quote this message") in their German app to "Kostenvoranschlag" ("estimate of cost").

[fhars]

My all time favorite machine translation was from a very early online service (I think it may have been by AltaVista) that translated "Würzburg" as "peppering castle".

[throwamon]

> "Greetings," "Salutations"

And this is why HN shouldn't be taken seriously for user-facing design decisions.

[humantorso]

Right? So off the mark, I don't think they were near it to begin with.

[tomc1985]

Maybe it's the prevailing trend among non-HN people that sucks.

[marginalia_nu]

I'm kind of voting for "stop right there, criminal scum!"

If the greeting is going to be tonally inappropriate, why not go all in, right?

[nerdawson]

Windows used to have an error message that read “This program has performed an illegal operation…”. Your suggestion would have fit in perfectly.

[datavirtue]

My grandma called me in a panic for this one.

[grog454]

I kind of like the idea that someone who shouldn't be on my computer would also see that.

[catlifeonmars]

FWIW I don’t think that hi/hello have different connotations of formality. I use both interchangeably.

[LAC-Tech]

For me they definitely do. Hi is much more casual.

[alistairSH]

This. Both are informal greetings, but "hi" is more informal. Mostly interchangeable, but I tend not to use "hello" much - usually either "hi" when passing a peer in the hallway or "good morning/afternoon" if I need to be a bit more formal. FWIW, I was raised in the US, but with Scottish parents, so my speech & vocabulary differ a bit from most Americans.

[npteljes]

Also, that animation looks 100% like how they portrayed your computer being hacked in movies. You know, when the UI completely disappears and the only thing you see on the screen is the message that the hacker wants you to see.

[wink]

I'd find "Salutations" much more apt to a fantasy role playing game than an OS, but I'm not a native speaker. I'd still be chuckling all day, I guess.

[acid__]

No need to qualify your statement, as a native speaker myself I can confirm your assessment is 100% on point.

[JTbane]

love it when Windows crashes and you get the classic: :( Something went wrong.

[tomc1985]

I miss the bluescreens that didn't have emoticons

[sgtnoodle]

I don't mind the sad face in that context. It shows they know they let you down.

I maintain a build system at work, and I have it display an ASCII nuclear blast when folk pass in command line arguments that are known to be "dangerous".

[FillardMillmore]

When did that sad-face blue screen start? I'm thinking it was Windows 8

[sgtnoodle]

"All your files are exactly where you left them," it would be an awful shame if something happened to them...

[PinkMilkshake]

That might be specific to where you are from. I can only speak for Australia and New Zealand, but "Hi" is perfectly acceptable. Unnecessarily formal speech can come across as disingenuous, and maybe a little patronizing. Although the same is true for overly familiar speech as well.

[checkyoursudo]

I say hi in Germany all the time, which even has a formal form of interpersonal communication, and I never even get a second look from anyone. I say hi or hej on purpose because I am trying to teach Germans to be more efficient (some say moin, which is decent). If hi is fine here, then it is certainly fine in any English-speaking country/company. :)

[LAC-Tech]

New Zealand doesn't have formality. People don't even wear shoes.

I realise I'm supposed to think it's charming but it's always made me cringe.

[petters]

> "Hi" is how I greet the coworker I don't really even like that much.

Interesting. Sounds like I should stop saying "hi." That is the default in my native language but I work in an American company.

[checkyoursudo]

Nah. Hi is fine. So are hey, hullo, hallo, and in some casual companies and especially with friendly co-workers, even "yo" and "\'sup".

But seriously, hi is fine. There's nothing wrong with it. I personally think it is friendlier than hello, and it is certainly more efficient, which is why I say hi in Germany when people say "hallo" to me. Like, seriously, 2 syllables to say hi? So inefficient.

[rodgerd]

The Hi bugs me not a bit.

The "All your things are just where you left them" during a major upgrade? That gives me the shits.

[sgtnoodle]

That screen was so bad. I loved hearing anecdotes about folk seeing it and then subsequently discovering data loss.

[zerocrates]

I don't know, is the familiar "Hi" all that different from, say, the "Happy Mac"?

[Aloha]

I mean, your work computer is usually a co-worker you don't like that much (because it never quite does the thing I want), isn't it? Heck, I'd say that about my home computers too.

The computer for me is like the co-worker that does almost, but not exactly what I'd like it to do except when they do, the guy thats a little awkward when you run into them in unexpected situations, but he works pretty hard and works at least as many hours as you do.. except when they don't.

[sgtnoodle]

I view my work computer as a manifestation of half a century of highly technical work by millions of brilliant engineers, each and every one of them doing a slightly crappy job.

[naikrovek]

the importance of "hi" vs. "hello" is so low, so far down the list of bad messages that it's on the part of the long strip of paper that it is located about halfway back from its trip to the moon.

this is what you choose to complain about? your life must be exceptionally trouble-free.

[tomc1985]

They're trying to come off as friendly and inviting, but I read it as half-assed.

Perception is a bitch.

If I had my way we'd dispense with all these stupid pleasantries. My computer is not my friend, Windows is not my friend, and Microsoft and their awful marketing droids (who almost certainly guided their choice of words here) are most definitely not my friend. Who decided that Windows needs to talk to me like a middle-aged soccer mom (or an argonian shopkeeper)?

Nothing wrong with "Welcome", "Error 404: File Not Found", "Bad command or file name", etc etc etc. (Ok, maybe the last one is a bit cryptic, but it is telling me exactly what went wrong without any fluff, which is how all software should be.)

Computers are our servants, not our friends. They should act like it, and we should stop trying to humanize them.

[Avshalom]

>> My computer is not my friend, Windows is not my friend

>> "Hi" is how I greet the coworker I don't really even like that much

So you're saying they nailed the pitch perfectly.

[tomc1985]

touche

[wutbrodo]

> but I read it as half-assed.

Why is formality any more natural for a user interface than casualness? This seems like an extremely arbitrary personal preference masquerading as reasonable criticism, no different from getting riled up about the fact that Windows default theme is blue when it should _obviously_ be green.

> Computers are our servants, not our friends. They should act like it.

I had a live-in housekeeper for a chunk of my life, which is roughly as close to "servant" as one gets in the modern West; we communicated in normal, casual English. If you are going around insisting that service workers address you like an aristocrat, you're an enormous asshole.

[sgtnoodle]

I think a big part of it is the fact that it's a full-screen captive display, with an excessively long timeout. If it was a stupid little popup in the corner that said, "Hi, welcome to Windows!" It would have been cute.

If you're going to get all up in someone's face and demand their complete attention, there's a high bar for expected politeness, or at least some entertaining wit. "Hi" is just lazy and conceited. "Welcome. Please wait while we prepare your desktop," would be tolerable. A Maxis style status bar rambling on about "reticulating splines" would be funny.

To relate it to your experience with a housekeeper, if a housekeeper shouted your name from across the room, tapped you on the shoulder repeatedly, and then unplugged the TV you were watching to get your attention, you would expect them to say something like, "my apologies sir, the den is on fire," rather than, "lol, howdy."

A computer isn't a servant, though. It's a tool. A circular saw with a sassy personality means a trip to the hospital...

[wutbrodo]

> if a housekeeper shouted your name from across the room, tapped you on the shoulder repeatedly, and then unplugged the TV you were watching to get your attention, you would expect them to say something like, "my apologies sir, the den is on fire," rather than, "lol, howdy

You're talking about something completely different, urgency rather than formality. In the rude interruption example you gave, you combined the two despite them having nothing to do with each other. "holy shit bro the den is on fire!" would be an infinitely more appropriate reason for a rude interruption than "my esteemed sir, how goes your day".

As I said, it's an arbitrary aesthetic preference. GP's irritation that computers dont address users as aristocrats makes just as much (little) sense as getting angry that they don't shower the user with compliments about your appearance.

Like, it's cool if they're into that, but it's super weird to describe it as a general principle of UIs

[tomc1985]

Computers don't have feelings, they process data. I don't want servants, I have computers for that. So how I talk to them shouldn't matter.

In fact, if you have a servant at all, YOU are an enormous asshole. Nobody should live in the shadow of someone far more privileged than they.

[haimez]

That’s how you feel about computers, but that’s not how the average windows user feels about their computer. I’m not saying the average Windows user considers their computing device to be their close personal friend- but there’s a reason that the blue screen of death was phased out. Nobody (not even you) wants a hostile relationship with their own device (eg: BSoD) but most users would prefer to think that their own device is at least their confidant if not their ally.

[tomc1985]

Would a confidant or ally obscure the reasons for problems behind a friendly face? Would they use subtlety and emotional manipulation to push you to use the things that they want you to use?

Is my computer my ally/confidant, or is it trying to control me from the shadows?

An ally does not behave in the way that Windows has been programmed to behave. It should be straight and narrow with me when something is wrong. Not friendly and fake-diplomatic.

Once again, we are shown an example of how business greed and the desires of average, illiterate users ruin computing for the people that understand them and are capable of making the most with them -- the power users. Of course, rather than spending the extra effort needed to elevate ordinary users to a more literate status, we happily stoop to their level as it makes obscuring the various telemetry and profit machinery embedded in Windows far easier.

[flohofwoe]

Lol, I have a very hostile relationship with my Windows machine since around the Windows 8 era, but that's entirely on Microsoft ;)

A user shouldn't be victim to the whims of some far away UI/UX designer who only designs for what some data fortune teller thinks is their "average user". Computers are machines, designers need to stop anthropomorphizing them.

At the very least give me options to switch that crap off.

PS: But by far my main gripe with the "modern" UI philosophy is: a "No" means frigging *No*, it doesn't mean "not now" or "maybe later", I also can guarantee that I won't change my mind (and if I do I will find that option in the settings window myself, thank you). Not offering a simple "no" in a yes/no choice is an insult to the user's intelligence, it's as simple as that.

[autoexec]

> Nobody (not even you) wants a hostile relationship with their own device (eg: BSoD) but most users would prefer to think that their own device is at least their confidant if not their ally.

I have a very hard time believing that Microsoft cares at all about avoiding giving users the appearance of a hostile relationship with their own device. So many choices they make (or take away from us) are way too user hostile for that to be their concern.

They have no problems making it painfully clear that if you are running windows then the device you paid for belongs to Microsoft and they will dictate what it does whenever they want, along with what you are or are not allowed to do with your own system.

[sgtnoodle]

It's not like the "blue screen of death" was a feature. It was the kernel aborting due to an unrecoverable failure. They "phased it out" by making the kernel more robust because folk like their kernels to not abort, not because the blue screen was an interior UI choice.

I remember getting a mac to "blue screen" back in 2008 or so, by repeatedly plugging in a Logitech mouse while pushing its buttons down.

[wizofaus]

"Nobody should live in the shadow of someone far more privileged than they" - pretty sure 99% of the world's population does do exactly that...

[josefx]

It is bad enough that it fucking talks. First time I encountered that it screamed at me from the other side of the building because someone at Microsoft decided greeting new users with speakers turned to eleven is welcoming.

[salawat]

Or the condescending statement from Cortana about agreeing to the Windows EULA, or else... Ya know...<contemptuous pause> No Windows.

Seriously. It is the one thing that if I didn't need a Windows test system, I'd reject it every damn time just for being there. In fact, if they were a human, they'd be kindly asked to evict themselves from my domicile in perpetuity.

[tomc1985]

The tonality of all the new copy in Windows 10 is just bad. It's like a bunch of nontechnicals got together and tried to cuteify the OS.

I had totally forgotten about how obnoxious Cortana was (I always turned that shit off first thing), or the condescending text that accompanies large updates requiring you to re-certify that no, you don't want to use Microsoft Edge, thank you

Don't even want to imagine what Windows 11 is like, none of my PCs can run it (thank god)

[dvsfish]

While still bad in that way, its probably better than 10. It has a heap of its own issues, but my personal experience hasn't been quite as grating as far as the language is concerned. It's a healthy reasonably unoffensive middle ground of informative/understandable and casual. W11 has bigger issues than language.

[toyg]

Well, you chose to complain about somebody complaining about an item you deem trivial - so, by your own premise, your comment is effectively "$trivial ^ 3".

[_ktx2]

Just taking a step back here, I'm willing to bet OP and some of the other folks replying (like here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32338845) are just fulfilling predictions made here: https://spectrum.ieee.org/study-nobody-wants-social-robots-t...

This piece focused on a machines appearance, but later they comment that really what's at the root of peoples issues (the people that have them) is that they resent the anthropomophizing of machines in general - which I would take to include speech.

[triyambakam]

This is an internet forum (kinda), ya know?