🚀 go-pugleaf

At  17:07:05 3 Jun 1993, Larry_Childs@Novell.COM (Larry Childs) wrote:
>Who can tell me their policies and practices for translating Abend
>messages (i.e. "abnormal end" messages that come up when the program
>crashes)?

The initial part of messages should definitely be translated to provide a
human-readable error message. If it is true that they "convey very little
useful meaning", then they are probably poorly worded in the first place.
Even so, abend messages *do* convey two pieces of info that should be
written so that all users can understand them:
a) Something unexpected happened deep within the system, and
b) Here is an error number (or other detailed info) you may want to show
your system administrator.

Whether to translate the remaining parts of the message (the debugging
info) would depend on an assessment of the language skills of the systems
administrators (or whomever are in charge of handling the underlying
problem). Two arguments against translating the detailed message might be
if the technical manuals are not translated or if tech support is offered
on an international basis (by email or phone) instead of by local staff in
the individual country.

A basic rule for the design of error messages is that they should always
*start* with a human-readable part that can be understood by the average
user. Any detailedand more technical  info should follow at the end at a
point where the user has understood as much of the problem as can be
explained in uder-oriented terms.

Regarding the other argument, that these messages "are never supposed to be
seen in the first place", I can only say that I have yet to see a computer
system that never crashed. Remember that crash situations are particularly
unpleasant to users who feel betrayed by their system. In these critical
situations, the least the user interface can do is to be a little pleasant
to the user and explain that there is a problem and not just dump core (or
its equivalent: dump an error number).
--
Jakob Nielsen, Bellcore MRE-2P370, 445 South St, Morristown, NJ 07960-6438
Email nielsen@bellcore.com, Tel. (201) 829-4731, Fax (201) 829-2645
To get my electronic business card: any email to nielsen-info@bellcore.com