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Developer vs. user experience: it's 2024, tech is used by the masses, and still, every day, I see messages that something "failed", an "error occurred" or that I did something wrong trying to use something supposedly simple like entering a phone number or a bank account IBAN into a web form.

Worse, I remember being part of teams coding and releasing antipatterns like that, spending time in hour-long best practice discussions and still failing to deal with user "errors" in the end.

AI, the deus ex machina supposed to obsolete developers, does the exact opposite of development: fail and err, but always find some positive and polite words to gaslight its users and make them feel happy.

AI will replace developers just because it's better in being nice.

Comments
  • 4
    I don't need my errors to be "nice" I need them to be short, to the point and helpful.

    What even is the point of AI making me feel better about me being an idiot an mistyping my IBAN if it doesn't help me correct my mistake or if I have to suddenly read 5 paragraphs about how "oopsie woopsie, an error has happened but It's nobody's fault"

    Nah, I prefer cold error codes with exact definition on what is wrong.
  • 4
    @Hazarth that's the root cause: from a developer's perspective, something is wrong. From a user's perspective, I don't want to be lectured in which format I should type an IBAN, and if I copy it from an invoice, I expect it to be valid. Same goes for phone numbers.

    In a 1:1 human dialog, if someone asks for my number they won't demand that I repeat it without a leading zero, with or without a plus sign or whatever. But digital interfaces do.
  • 2
    @ingosteinke the issue is, software has to work often across the world. You very well might need to mention the leading zero if other countries need a leading 420 or leading 380...
    You really don't want the AI to guess wrong and you finding out when you lock yourself out and need quick Access or something.

    Explicit is better than implicit. It's for the users safety and benefit too. They also "don't need to be reminded to not walk on the cycling road" yet they fucking do it you don't remind them so fuck them honestly xD
  • 0
    I’m struck by the persistent gap between developer intentions and user experiences; despite technological advances, it's disheartening to see basic usability issues and user frustrations still prevalent, especially when AI, rather than solving these problems, seems to add another layer of complexity. https://mapquest-directions.org
  • 0
    @Hazarth in most cases there is no need to guess. When IBAN account numbers were introduced in Europe, official definitions and correct checking algorithms have been issued. Many numbers or codes have 1...n correct representations which are often (but not always) clearly defined.
  • 0
    There are also inconsistencies like ERR_NETWORK_CHANGED. A normal event that does not cause notifications on mobile phones and in mobile browsers, but makes Chromium browsers throw an error. Why won't Chromium browsers just continue to load data when a network change was detected? Instead they interrupt browsing and throw an ERR_NETWORK_CHANGED error telling me that my connection was interrupted. I don't understand the purpose of this error message or why this behavior is the default an not a special option.
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