Wouldn't you like error messages better if they were written as haiku poems?

I stumbled across these from snopes. Apparently these originated from an old Salon.com contest.

But even if they'll never appear in an error dialogue, aren't they fun? Useful information in an error message would be a nice place to start, but why not a bit of whimsy. Isn't this what people mean when they talk about "desirability" in software design? ;)

Here's a long list of my favorite ones:

Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.

The Web site you seek
Cannot be located,
but Countless more exist.

Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.

Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.

First snow, then silence.
This thousand-dollar screen dies
So beautifully.

With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.

Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.

A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.

Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.

Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

Printer not ready.
Could be a fatal error.
Have a pen handy?

The code was willing,
It considered your request,
But the chips were weak.

:)

Innovation: Everybody loves it. Great. So how do you DO it?

Everyone is tripping over themselves lately talking about innovation. Even the monolithic companies have caught on, along with George W, and they've all joined the chorus: "Innovation! Innovation is the way of the future!"

Before I get caught up in my own mental image of these characters marching along like the mobs in that Simpsons "Monorail" episode, I'll get to the point.

How should we approach this innovation anyway?

So I see two approaches going on. The first is the top-down, or big-vision-driven version. This one sounds the best and feels the best when the idea is hatched. That's because it's pie-in-the-sky.

To come up with big visions like this, you do some brainstorming. (With at least some knowledge of your actual user base, or this has great potential to turn out VERY badly.)

Brainstorming! Great tool. But brainstorming means you imagine that there are no limits. How freeing! Your imagination can go anywhere!

When does reality set in?

This is how you get incomplete solutions, or solutions that only work --in perfect synergy mind you-- if you have all the *right* equipment to go with it. For example....have you used onenote but not ie? Or MS Money without an internet connection? Lest you think I'm picking on Microsoft, how about computer games made that can only run on machines so sophisticated that they aren't even out on the market yet? In all of these situations, the experience is degraded unless you have all the proper equipment.

Dreaming big is great. But don't forget that constraints enhance creativity. Consider starting from the bottom-up. Starting from a small observation of humans and their activities. There are lots of clumsy half-solutions in all our lives. And there's the opportunity for innovation.

If you take these small observations yet still keep your mind open to the impossible, you are starting from the ground-up.

Do not assume that everyone will have achieved a particular level of technology by the time you launch.

Consider this example (yes from the overexposed Marissa Mayer)

In either situation (top-down or bottom-up), you start with knowledge of your users. How you work with that knowledge determines whether or not those users will be able to use the product that you're building for them!

Can't it just...work? In an imperfect world?

Yes. Just start from the bottom-up.

paper is the cure for the common distraction

In this post, "My Computer is an Enabler", this blogger pinpoints that feeling of divided attention when you can pursue any and every interesting little thing down the rabbit hole while working on 3 other projects (all at the same time).

"I have to admit it - I am a junkie for information, and my computer is an enabler. I am going to coin a new phrase - distraction sickness, for which the only known cure is a return to pencil and paper."

It's amazing what pulling out a sheet of paper can do for my sense of focus. This is yet another reason why paper will exist for a long time yet. Yeah it's a pain, but has so many intangible and poorly understood bennys.