Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Useles Error Message

This afternoon at work I tried to send an email using my new Microsoft Outlook 2010 program. When I hit the "Send" button on the program the following box popped up:

I laughed out loud when I saw it, especially the hyperlinked question at the bottom of the window: "Was this information helpful?" The message "Cannot send this item" could not be LESS helpful! It's almost not even necessary. The fact that the error box popped up when I hit "Send" pretty much told me there was a problem. What I need to know at that point is WHY it can't be sent so that I can fix the problem.

And the fact that the button ASKS me if the information is helpful tells me that Microsoft KNOWS that it isn't. And don't assume that the link is at the bottom of every error message in Office 2010. It's not. I intentionally caused several other common errors and different message boxes appeared that did not have the hyperlinked question at the bottom. Microsoft KNOWS this is a dumb error message, but doesn't know how to put anything any more informative.

Or maybe the programmer is just mocking me!