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Comment by harperlee | Hacker News Reader

Hopefully this becomes a reversal in the trend of giving less and less context to the user.

I'm not against the considerations of the article regarding the user and its state of mind, but please do add as much technical detail as possible!

Even if an error message is a cryptic error code, that's better than a "Something went wrong" message. This is not better, or even friendlier, UX. An error code can be referenced, can be searched on the internet, can be passed around on a ticket or on a call... add parameters to your error template, reference the name of the file, the item name that does not respond, the HTTP error code... just give the user some transparency, some agency. Help the client build up a mental model of the error: when / how / why might it be happening.

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I'm somewhat fond of including a UUID for that reason. As long as they can copy-paste it into Google, they can get results that are precisely the errors from your application, unlike "error 55324". The same works internally: zero ambiguity which system it came from, and it's trivial to find the full history of the error (message). It's not great for verbally communicating tho.

But yes, I can get behind making things nicer to read and less technically scary, but include enough detail so that people can solve their own problems if needed. There's a decent chance that the software will outlive your desire to support it.

IBM have been doing this for centuries, each error comes with a code you can look up for more information. Although this is probably way too late, all nix/nux utilities should come with either a magic ID string you can copy into Google to find all the other people baffled by the same error message ("Quadrant change in relocatable expression", that's an actual error message), or just an option to launch a browser with said info, because the message itself ain't giving you anything to go on.

If it's something I can fix as the user, I need good clear information.

If it's not something I can fix as the user, weigh the options: do I even need to know there's an error? Can you just cache the operation and try again later? Maybe an indication that it's happening in the background?

Current favorite peeve: Uber Driver app for deliveries complains "couldn't upload the photo" of the drop off. It's because this customer lives somewhere off the signal map. I can't do anything about it until I drive a mile back in the other direction. So, instead of blocking further operation, just hold that pic until we get back to civilization, ok? I need the map to get to the next pick up or dropoff, and this nonsense is in the way.

Hopefully but seems unlikely. The example good error message wix-ux provides still has near zero context.

Yes, but it's reassuring, and has the words "DON'T PANIC" in large, friendly letters on the cover.

Anything is better than "something went wrong". It is quite possibly the stupidest error message every created, we know something went wrong because whatever we tried to do errored out. The best description I've seen of it was in a book draft:

  When web UI developers die they go to what appears to be waiting area before
  the gates of paradise.  However no matter what they do to get in, anything
  they try just pops up a message saying "Something went wrong".  No other
  information, just "Something went wrong" over and over again.  Then they
  wonder why there are flames and screaming all around them...

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