The Old New Thing

I'm reminded of the football press conference beer commercial with Bill Parcells:

Reporter: Coach, I have a question! I love cold Coors Light!

Bill: That's really not a question.

I think in some cases people use this kind of question because they simply have no idea what has happened.  Perhaps the error message means nothing to them (they don't have expertise to know what it means), and they just wonder where to begin looking for answers.

I don't really believe that was the case in your example.  I'm just saying that, in my own organization, I have seen developers write code that displays an error that is so generic, that the person who needed to use the application really has no guidance on where to begin.  The error might as well have said, "The sun will most likely come up tomorrow."

In those situations, a person doesn't have much recourse other than to say "What do I do?"

I'm starting to think that Raymond Chen is really just an AI program that just has a really strict input parser ;)

Many users in my organization are too lazy to a) read and attempt to understand the error message, and b) attempt to act on the message.

How can I improve my messages if folks won't even try to follow their direction?

I think the advice they are looking for is...

"Re-establish the connection to the computer Z."

"but the question doesn't really specify what sort of advice was desired."

Q:  Can you provide advice?

A:  Yes. Next question?

I was always impressed by the cut & dried no-BS approach to support that Manifold put forth:

http://www.manifold.net/support/support.html

In fact, it was inspirational when writing my company's (gentler) support document:

http://3dnature.com/techsupport.html#CONTEXT

Another gem is ESR's "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way"

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

though I understand ESR and Microsoft are like antimatter and matter. ;)

This just went off in my head:

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20050815

UserFriendly is so true to life. *sob* Wish it wasn't so...

CGomez: "In those situations, a person doesn't have much recourse other than to say "What do I do?""

It depends on what outcome you would like!  Perhaps you should go to the beach.

Asking "What do I do" is no better than asking for advice.

You want advice?  Don't marry a jerk.  There, that's some good advice.  :-)

Now, if you were to ask "What do I do to avoid this message, since I have already verified the connection to computer Z?" is a more specific question.

Hehe, it reminds me of a famous ad here a few years ago for Pizza Hut. The delivery boy was delivering a pizza (to his dad as it happened) and just before his dad closed the door, he says "so, how 'bout a tip?" To which the dad replied "A tip? Work hard, be good to your mother," and shut the door.

I loved that ad :-)

Is is only IT or does it happen in other professions. If I go to the doctor with a problem I don't expect to be laughed at,  mocked or ignored because I don't state my problem or question the correct way. Basically told to go away and come back when I can ask better questions.

Except that this is like emailing a doctor with "My X is sore and Y is a different colour from usual. Can you help?" I'm sure that if doctors were in the habit of providing free advice via email, they too would quickly tire of having to drag details out of people. The question is whether people would then complain that the doctors are being "unprofessional" for wanting specifics when providing free help.

Sometime when I have time and I'm in good mood, I might create a checklist on "what can go wrong" for the customer.

Then again, for most of the days I'm not in good mood. :P

I'd like to file your whole post in Nitpickers corner :) Human communication doesn't have to take place over a strict protocol (thankfully) and that's because we have the power of intuition. I bet you can safely infer exactly what mails like this one are asking for 9 times out of 10. And for those 1 in 10 that you can't, ask for more info. Human conversation, it might not be as structured as SOAP, but it's much more fun.

:P

@Josh - good one

Jonny: "If I go to the doctor with a problem..."

That's a poor comparison. First, you're not getting medical advice via email from that doctor, and secondly, you're not getting FREE medical advice, either. You're paying a lot of money (either directly to the doctor or to your insurance company) for that advice.

I'm sure if someone said "Raymond, here are two one hundred dollar bills. Can you help me with this issue?", Raymond might look at it a little differently.

And Josh: Just because "human communication doesn't have to take place over a strict protocol" doesn't mean that the person asking the question shouldn't take some time composing a decent question. Search this site for a post I made in the past concerning "What do you know about telephones?" and you'll see what I mean.

Hm. Good point.

Allow me to vent a few pet observations:

1. A group of true facts does not constitute an explanation. You can totally obscure the topic and ruin your audience's understanding while still saying things that are true. This is what Edward Tufte called "negative information", iirc.

2. A demonstration isn't an explanation. The only purpose of a demonstration is to make an explanation easier to digest. Using a demonstration in the place of an explanation is at best lazy thinking, and at worst contemptuous of your listener.

3. No explanation happens in a vacuum; all explanations involve a difference in power between the audience and the speaker. Some people are more interested in abusing that relationship by putting odious burdens on the audience that don't *really* help (cough -- ESR -- cough...), which, sadly, tends to reward sycophants.

1 out of 10 customers will tell tech support about there problems.  9 out of 10 will tell their friends and coworkers.  You don't have the time to figure out what this persons problem is so you can make it disappear forever in the next release?

Don't be sad Raymond. I am sure some people take your point. For those who don't, well, you can lead a horse to water....

Let me try to sweeten the kool-aid a little. When I give job interviews there is a checkbox on my form for "asks good questions." This is not just a tie breaker. In my experience, people who do not know how to ask good questions do not make productive workers.

A corollary to "don't forget to ask your question".

Raymond has had lots of great posts over the years on how to not get a question answered. Some of the