[hnlmorg]

Back in the early days of my career and supporting end users, I used to constantly get people say:

   “xxx doesn’t work. I just get an error”

They would never tell me what the error message actually was. And when I asked, the reply often was

   “I don’t remember. I’ve closed it now”. 

It used to wind me up rotten. I can forget non-technical people not understanding the error message. But common sense should have kicked in that the error message is important to share with the person trying to fix said error.

[rkagerer]

Maybe all errors should be presented with a simple, distinctive and memorable theme - e.g. show a pig photo in that one maybe they'll remember "I got the pig error"

[JadeNB]

> Maybe all errors should be presented with a simple, distinctive and memorable theme - e.g. show a pig photo in that one maybe they'll remember "I got the pig error"

This sounds like the thing that they do in parking garages where each level will have a color, an image, or sometimes even a musical theme. (Which is to say, it sounds like a good idea!)

[Xss3]

Could make cute pictures and brighten support staffs day. 'I got a pig telling a chicken that the barn is closed??'

[netsharc]

I was thinking celebrities, but then people will misidentify them.

Each micro-service (in 2025?!?!) would have different pictures of a particular celebrity, for different errors.. so if the user says e.g. "I see Taylor Swift doing..." the support can say "Let me forward you to the S3 people!".

[yencabulator]

How much do you want to owe in license fees for their likeness?

[netsharc]

Oh, boring bean counters...

[Xss3]

Animals are way more cross culture compatible

[tough]

lmfao this is genius and would work better than text

[lostlogin]

That’s a good idea - and even technical users would find that more memorable than 1198854 versus a 1197854 error.

[hinkley]

I think you're going to find people mistaking one animal for another.

[yencabulator]

Error detecting/correcting codes!

The pig is laying down.

The horse is eating.

The bird is sitting.

If you say you saw a pig eating, you misremember.

[magicalhippo]

You can dunk on lay people all you want, personally I'm a lot more furious about fellow programmers who thinks it's OK to show an error that says "file not found" without any context like the filename.

Like, help a brother out!

[hnlmorg]

Writing helpful error messages is definitely a skill. And I too get annoyed at unhelpful error messages.

But I don’t think your point invalidates mine.