Vrftsjtryk

I'm of the opinion that the user is always using software or hardware correctly and to imply otherwise is rude, condescending, and philosophically wrong. For example, I and everyone I know pulls USB drives out of a computer without bothering to click eject. OS developers should see this and build their software to accommodate this instead of bothering users with "you did that wrong" messages.

Is this a widely-held view among UX designers/developers? Is there an official term for this philosophy?

No. It is not a widely held view among UX designers. Unfortunately.

Even less so amongst those using SO and considering themselves to be UX Designers.

I suspect this is mainly because UX design is not a rigorous field, nor do its proponents practice patience and understanding of their potential users. Perhaps even worse, they're seemingly of the belief ideal UX 'design' exists and can be discerned from data, without realising this is done through the subjectivity of themselves and their peers. This compounds because they're often the least qualified to set criteria for analysis, lacking both insight and intuition. Often not valuing these things, at all.

UX Design is one of the few fields suffering from more issues pertaining to self-selection bias than programming. Quite an achievement.

This is a common UX design principle. The best error message, is to avoid an error message in the first place. There are many examples of design principles out there, but no standard set.

Jacob Neilson used the term “Error Prevention” in his 10 usability heuristics.
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/

"Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action."

Apple refers to it as “User Control" in their IOS guidelines:
https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/ios/overview/themes/

"The best apps find the correct balance between enabling users and avoiding unwanted outcomes."

User-Centered Design

What you’re describing is a consequence of User-Centered Design (coined by Don Norman himself). I’ve heard this principle expressed as “the user is always right” and “it’s not the user’s fault”.

As has been pointed out, this type of thinking is not common enough, even among UX professionals. The issue is that we’re trying to “fix” user behavior, rather than matching the user’s mental model.

In your example, the user’s mental model is that the flash drive is ready and can be removed if no files are being copied to or from it. Therefore, we should design our software and hardware to match this and to prevent any errors that might occur as a result. Here are a few suggestions to accomplish this:

1. Never keep an external drive in a dirty state longer than necessary. When writing to the drive is complete, get the filesystem into a state where it can be unplugged safely.


2. Always show an indication or notification when a drive in use, such as when a file is being saved (which should also be done automatically!). The system should inform users as to exactly what is happening, so that they know that the drive should not be unplugged yet.


3. Ideally, USB ports should be redesigned so that it’s possible for the computer to physically hold the device in place; the operating system would then release the drive when it’s safe to be unplugged. This would make these problems impossible. (This is how CD/DVD-RW drives work when a disc is being burned.) I don’t know if this is feasible from an engineering standpoint, but I think it should have been considered during the design process for USB-C.