error messages resolution impossible 8377

Research background

Method

Research documentation

• Participant recruitment
• Set up testing environment
• Usability testing guide
• Testing scenario

Findings & recommendations

Error message high-level findings

• Participants did not understand the meaning of ~=
• The possible solution documentation link was lost in the error message
• Most users had no understanding of Error: no distribution found message
• Format of constraints was difficult to read
• Some experienced users asked for concrete actions to be displayed in the error message
• Use of red text in error-message reduced its readability

Full findings and recommendations presentation

Documentation high-level findings

• Most users found documentation useful
• Over-emphasis on documentation containing "the issue I have right now"
• Users were looking for consistency between their situation and the documentation
  • We modified the docs (iteration 2) to be generic and it still worked
• Providing the operators in the documentation was helpful
  • some felt they were "in the way" of the solution
• Experienced Python users saw recommendation for forking package (solution 2) seen as:
  • unnecessary by experienced Python users
  • unhelpful and possibly dangerous for inexperienced users
• The error causes were verbose but helpful
• Experienced participants thought link for Dependency Hell was useful (and funny)
• Force install information seen as confusing
  • Why can't I do it?
  • This might be something I wanted to try
  • If I can't do it, why tell me about it?