Getting the obscured bX-error message (like the
"bX-ob6b7r" yesterday) which tells the user absolutely nothing about what is going on, what is the user supposed to do? Searching high and low from help forums and googling the vast interwebz a certain reporting form [
link] was mentioned, supposedly giving the user chance of reporting error codes directly to developers. First problem is that this link was nowhere to be found in the error message itself, so the hapless user has to notice the link in some help forum discussion usually unrelated to that particular error code. Second problem is that this bX-code reporting form is your standard Google spreadsheet form and there is no indication that the form is made by or is read by the developers, and not made by someone not related to development in any shape or form. So just fill the form and hope that something happens.
When we look at the form itself, there are some additional problems. What time should I input into the
"Timestamp" field? Is it the time now or the time of the error occurred? Do I put date, time or both? In what format do I input the time? In 24 hour or 12 hour format (AM/PM)? In what timezone? Can I put the time according to my timezone or do I have to try to find somewhere what timezone system uses and convert the time to that? If I have to put date too is
ISO 8601 standard time (YYYY-MM-DD) ok or should I use
Unix time (seconds since new year of 1970)? Does any of this matter when reporting the error?
The user faces another classical user interface problem when trying to "
Describe what you were doing when you received this bX-code". The field name is long but field itself is the same size as every other field, i.e. too short for writing a long description what the user was doing when receiving this code. User interface input field sizes should be based on the amount of input the user wants to make into that particular field. E.g. field for postal code can (and usually should) be relatively short but field for street address should be much longer because street addresses are usually much longer than postal codes. Fortunately for the users writing a short story about what were they doing when error happened, these fields allow more input than their length would suggest. Or maybe the form just cuts the description after first 21 characters and rest disappears into oblivion, who knows. And when we are at it, I want to give a free advice for all those developers who force me to select my home state in their web forms: there is life also outside the States and it would be really nice if you would recognize that if you want me to buy something from you.
Then user has to
"Select the browser you were using" so that shouldn't be a... wait a minute, it says "select" even though the user interface element used here is not a drop-down list but an input field. Tsk-tsk. Of course actually having a drop-down list would make things much more easier since now the users have to worry if just generic browser name is enough or should they add also the version number.
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