Hacker News Reader

Comment by ssgodderidge | Hacker News Reader

Here's a favorite UX error message of mine from chase.com

>"Your session is about to end. You've been inactive for a while. For your security, we'll automatically sign you out in approximately 1 minute. You may choose "Stay signed in" to continue or sign out if you're done."

No stress put on the user with a timer (e.g. "You will be logged out in 3...2...1"). Instead, they simply state the facts in a calm way. "For your security" tells me why they're logging me out. Perfect voice for a bank. I want that level of simplicity in all my financial apps.

View on HN

I would personally go with a much shorter "Are you still there? If you're not, we'll log you out to protect your account." The buttons speak for themselves and the more words you add to a message, the less of it people will read.

Hell, if one button says "stay signed in" and the other says "log out", I don't even know if I'd go with a message that long. Just "are you still there" may be enough, with a redirect to the "why did I get logged out" page if you let the timer lapse.

On the other hand, I want error messages to be as descriptive as possible, with a short summary for normal users perhaps. Operational messages may be short and sweet, but if I need to solve a problem, I've had it with the "oopsie whoopsie we made a mistakey wakey" messages apps produce these days.

I don't like being asked something if the question/answer does clearly communicate what the consequences are.

Either the broad question is patronizing, suggesting the program makes decisions over my head without even informing me what about, or it is superfluous since the explanation+action is all I want or need.

I really do not enjoy programs behaving like they have intelligence by being vague or leading, but really never are, since their logic only covers the common case.

Disagree, your suggestion sounds anything but calm. It's like the computer is angry at me and it's fed up of my inactivity.

The HIG can upgrade that message slightly:

title: Your session is about to end.

text below: You’ve been inactive for a while. For your security, we’ll automatically sign you out in approximately 1 minute.

action button: Stay signed in

action button: Sign out

Maybe the text could be reworded a bit. “Automatically” is redundant, everyone knows websites are automatic. “About” can do the work of “approximately”. I like how friendly they are when telling you the time limit but it may not be necessary to give a time at all. So you end up with: “For your security, we sign out sessions that have been inactive for a while.”

Does everyone actually know what a "session" is? That word must be so confusing to some people.

It seems inferrable, at least in broad strokes, from the other, non-technical meanings of the word. See for example "the court is now in session" or "I had a physical therapy session this morning".

Isn't it used the same way in English? When you go to a therapist, you have a therapy session. When some musicians get together, they may have a jam session.

The technical meaning is very similar to the non-technical one.

I agree it's similar, though there's one difference: on many websites a session can have an arbitrary duration. If you log in to Google or Amazon once you can stay logged in on that device for months.

I'm not sure. Everyone learns it quite quickly after they are logged-out, but I don't think people know beforehand.

It's certainly not an issue for returning users. But I don't know how to improve it for first time visitors either ("logout" has the same problem).

Yeah, it probably is confusing to some. You might be able to skip the title entirely.

"For your security" is a cliché, I don't feel like it explains anything.

Using that snippet as an example, I wonder if I'm in the minority in that I would rather have more generic and impersonal explanations whenever possible, avoiding you·s and we·s. I find it somewhat grating to have what I know are software environments taking automated decisions and describing abstract concepts trying to pretend this is a personal relationship or interaction. This is not a terrible annoyance for me, just a very minor pet peeve, but I would much prefer the app/website to say for instance:

> This session is about to end due to inactivity. For security reasons it will be automatically signed out in approximately 1 minute. You may choose "Stay signed in" to continue or sign out if you're done.

Note that I don't mind the you in the last sentence, as it is truly referring to the personal me.

How about when some annoying dialog box gives you the options:

    Yes
    No, thank you

I don't want to thank my phone for offering to set a battery saver. It's not a person and I didn't want it to offer.

Yes, that also annoys me! Especially when it's not even my phone but for example a third party service that is asking me to do something in their interest and not mine. Every time I click on one of those "No, thank you" buttons I mumble to myself a correction of "No, fuck you".

I suppose there are more people bothered by having to click a rude 'no', maybe?

EDIT: also, being bothered by it is maybe more the case for people who understand computers (at least somewhat).

I think it was originally used because A/B testing said there's a 1% increased "Yes" conversion rate when having to thank the company while declining, and then everyone started to copy Bigtech as always.

Whilst I agree with you on the communication from you to your phone.

However the phone is never speaking to you. It’s the designer(s).

I’m not sure why the illusion of the technology speaking to us is so important. I guess because humans anthropomorphise everything.

Slightly ironic that this makes us loose sight of the fact that we are actually communicating with humans.

In this whole conversation it seems this point is lost.

I cringe every time Windows says "they" are doing something.

I found that disconcerting, my computer is singular, so who is helping it?

We have everything under control, you do not need to know.

    We have everything under control, you do not need to know. Are you happy with the experience we are providing you?

    – Yes
    – Yes, thank you

Isn't this considered terrible UX nowadays? Shouldn't a button "Maybe stay signed in later" be the only option to continue the countdown? ;-)

YMMY it seems overly wordy for me, and makes the bank seem amateurish and that they don't respect their users' time. Which would dissuade me from a banking app

A banking app needs to be universal because of how essential it is to participate in society.

I could see that POV. If it helps, they use effective visual formatting. The first sentence is an enlarged heading, and the rest of the text is smaller underneath.

From the article

> Be clear. Choose words that are easily understood and convey the right thing. Check each word to be sure it needs to be there.

[ title: You have been inactive for a while ]

[ dialog: To help keep your account secure, you will be signed out in approximately 1 minute. ]

[ button: Keep me signed in] [ button: Sign out ]

[ maybe a link: Why am I seeing this? ]

Reply on news.ycombinator.com