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Comment by SpaceL10n | Hacker News Reader

Great question. Something like, "This computer has no input devices. Check your keyboard and mouse." Seems like pretty important use case for a personal computer targeting people who may not have grown up around computers or even finished high school.

As a user of personal computers, I should be able to easily determine if my computer is configured for basic use.

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That error message is very poor.

Check your keyboard and mouse? I don't even know what you mean by that.

This computer has no input devices? Well that is simply false. The user is currently using an input device when they see this message.

Here's a better message:

"Warning!

Disabling Bluetooth will disconnect your wireless keyboard and wireless mouse. You will need to use a wired keyboard and wired mouse to re-enable Bluetooth.

Are you sure you want to disable Bluetooth?

Cancel. Disable Bluetooth. "

There should probably be a hardware button or switch to enable Bluetooth.

> The user is currently using an input device when they see this message.

Surely they are using an output device, the screen?

They need to use an input device like a mouse to disable bluetooth. Which they are about to not be able to use. But when they are seeing the message they are still using it.

> Check your keyboard and mouse

Check engine light? I checked! The engine is still there!

That's needlessly verbose already. If you just warn people that disabling Bluetooth will disable their keyboard and mouse, they will put A and B together and cancel. No need to turn it into a logical exercise.

The problem with either message is that it requires enough context to predict that the future state will make the computer unusable. (I know there are no HID usb devices, I know there is a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse).

Neither message is particularly bad, but hypothetical error messages are just that. Either message would require piercing the veil between the Bluetooth transceiver and the devices that rely on it, meaning you’d have to be careful to avoid a leaky abstraction. (Bunch of HID detection spaghetti next to your clean Bluetooth disabling code).

Agree about the switch.

The first thing anyone is taught is the names of things, I don't think it's a stretch to expect people to know what the name of the thing they type on and the name of the pointing device they use is called.

And, sadly, given the rate of "click through" on all warning dialogs, a very many users will not read even the "better message" and will simply reflexively hit the "ok" button to "make this popup go away", effectively ending up in the same state.

Better is either the button/switch to turn Bluetooth on, or do not allow disablement when either a mouse or a keyboard is connected via Bluetooth and no wired version of the same is presently installed.

> Better is either the button/switch to turn Bluetooth on, or do not allow disablement when either a mouse or a keyboard is connected via Bluetooth and no wired version of the same is presently installed.

I was thinking similarly, but for backwards compatibility, maybe only allow a person to disable it using a somewhat complicated combination of hotkeys. Show the warning and then after 5 seconds the hotkeys would be displayed and active. Or maybe something similar to "sticky keys" on Windows, when you hold down shift for a bit.

Never use the word "Cancel" in a warning dialog.

It is easy to get confused. Cancel what? Cancel Bluetooth? Cancel the turning off of Bluetooth?

Better are two buttons like this: [Keep Bluetooth running] [Disable Bluetooth].

Mac OS does this often right. I say this somewhat grudgingly.

You also need a “I don’t know what to do” button. Clicking this will do the most sensible thing which in this case is keeping Bluetooth running. Because my elderly mother is 100% disabling bluetooth under that situation using logic I can’t even comprehend.

Cancel maybe better than that because the confused user doesn't know what the current state of the system is. Cancel means "don't do anything". "Keep" implies the same thing, but I think cancel would confuse less grandparents.

Reminds me of the classic BIOS error message:

"Keyboard not found. Press F1 to continue"

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