Errors in Errors
It’s been a wee while since I posted an interface gripe. So here’s one I got today at YouTube:
So, what’s wrong with this?
- 500 Internal Server Error. That sounds like a lot of waiters with gut problems. Serious. What did I do wrong? I must have done something.
- Trained monkeys, that’s sort of almost funny (but not really). I think they mean that someone’s going to fix it.
- If someone’s fixing it, does that mean what I’ve just tried to do will get done or do I need to do it again. Now? Later? When?
- Even though it’s being fixed I have to email customer service. Why? In case the monkeys’ pagers aren’t working?
- What on earth is that big blog of Matrix style gunk that I have to copy and paste into my ‘error report’, what’s an ‘error report’? How do I make one?
It just hasn’t been thought about properly. Someone’s seen that it can be nice to personalise these messages and give them a bit of character (hence the monkeys gag). But for me it’s indicative of the fact that YouTube doesn’t really have a visible character, or tone of voice.