#errormessages

Incidentally, I just mentioned my error message project (my assignment at ASRC Federal) in a comment in LinkedIn. I saw and responded to a post that requested comments on Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics. The questions: "Which of these heuristics resonate the most/least with you and your product? When do you follow them? Where do you break them?" (Link to post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/shyveeshi_10-usability-heurisitics-activity-6983082316029906944-BHaB?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop)

I commented: I like your post. It is very informative. Two of the 10 are on error messages. I gravitated towards those two probably because I worked on an error message project in the past.

(Screenshot of LinkedIn post with comment Fahmeena Odetta Moore -1)

(Screenshot of LinkedIn post with comment Fahmeena Odetta Moore -2)

(Screenshot of LinkedIn post with comment Fahmeena Odetta Moore -3)

Nielsen's Usability Heuristics was (and probably still is) popular. I found a paper that used his usability heuristics in a typical manner - to assess the usability of several university websites. The paper is:

Usability Heuristics as an assessment parameter: For performing Usability Testing By: Afifa Lodhi https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/5608809 (Published in: 2010 2nd International Conference on Software Technology and Engineering)

I also found an interesting article that reported on several usability heuristics in use. Nielsen’s is just one. I will look into the usability heuristics in use today.

Usability heuristics: A systematic review By: Cristhy Jimenez, Pablo Lozada, Pablo Rosas https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7750805 (Published in: 2016 IEEE 11th Colombian Computing Conference (CCC))

Bottomline: Your code has to be 100% correct. You can not have even one dash in the wrong place. More details, examples and tips below:

So, if you’re like me, you don’t know anything about this stuff. So you may spend hours googling and doing tutorials over and over again just because you’re ignorant.

Luckily, I’m home for Christmas and my dad is a database administrator. So he probably heard me recording my last, pathetic video and decided to pop into my room.

Here is a photo of the error I was getting:

Since I’m almost completely blind doing this, I was troubleshooting this error message the only way I knew how, which was copy pasting it into google. But it was specific, and I wasn’t getting any answers and didn’t understand why. 

My dad looked at it for 2 seconds and was able to fix it and he doesn’t even use C#. He explained that you have to have identical code. So he held up the tutorial screen from the Roll The Ball tutorial and compared it to my code:

My code:

Tutorial:

If you are the type of person to pay good attention to detail, you may notice that these are not identical. If you’re like me, you may look at these and think, “meh, close enough.”

If you continue to be like me, you will not ever roll you’re dumb ball over your lousy plane. So I’m sorry to say this, but if we plan to learn Unity, we have no choice but to pay better attention to detail.

Here is the discrepancy:

Me:

Tutorial:

These two brackets could have forced me to start the entire tutorial over just out of ignorance.

There were clues there though, that if I had known better, could have saved me time. Here are a couple ways to tell if you have bad code:

RED ZIG ZAG UNDERLINE!

When there was an error, part of the code had a red zig zag underline, similar to when you spell something wrong. This indicates the the code is incorrect. Once the code was fixed, the line went away.

BRACKET BUDDIES!

Brackets (thats: { ) in C# must have a pair.  There will never be one by itself. 

When you put your curser in front of your bracket, it will highlight it’s matching pair in orange (above). If you are missing a bracket, it will pick a pair that is incorrect. This may make it more obvious when one is solo.

This is slightly more difficult to determine if you’re not familiar with coding, but it’s a good thing to know as you learn.

What hath my convos birthed:

"THIS PROGRAM HAS CRASHED BECAUSE IT SAW YOUR FUCKING FACE AND DECIDED THAT ITS SHORT PATHETIC EXCUSE OF A LIFE WAS NO LONGER WORTH FUCKING LIVING IF PEOPLE LIKE YOU EXIST IN THIS WORLD. I HOPE YOU FUCKING FEEL TERRIBLE FOR BEING SO UGLY YOU SHOULD'VE BEEN CULLED BEFORE YOU WERE EVEN FUCKING CONCIEVED.

PLEASE TELL CAPTOR ABOUT THIS PROBLEM:

SEND ME FUCKING FEMWOOFBEAST

DON'T SEND, BE A SHITTY LITTLE BULGEBUMPER"

Smash forehead on keyboard to continue.

Press any key to continue or any key to quit.

Close your eyes and press escape three times.

File not found. Should I fake it? (Y/N)