Comment The problem is in the design (Score 1) 951
The reason user's don't read the error messages is largely because, they don't mean anything to anyone but the person who wrote the application or environment. I have been a software developer for over 10 years, and I have difficulty understanding half the error messages I read on a daily basis.
Developers, majoritively, lack the understanding that the people who will see their error messages the most, have no idea what 'data' or 'uninitialized' even mean. Even if they do know that basic stuff, that doesn't mean to say they know how it relates to the specific application and what has gone wrong.
They will never remember what it said.
If you speak english as your only language and you read a sign containing 10 or 20 words in arabic.... are you going to remember what it said half an hour or a day later when you speak with your support guy ? I doubt it.
People ignore and fear what they don't understand.
Make useful error messages, and people will most likely not only remember what went wrong, they may know how to fix it themselves. ;)