Huh?

One of the qualities that makes a web application (or web site) great is displaying informative, helpful error messages when things go wrong, while trying its best to prevent errors from happening in the first place, to insure a smooth experience.

Many web sites though still don’t display error messages that help users recover from errors. They just tell them that something wrong happened. For example, here’s a message I got repeatedly yesterday as I was trying to send a private message on facebook:

Yes, more confusion please.

It doesn’t really say what happened. Was it something I did? was it facebook’s fault? what happened exactly? all it did was frustrate me more.

Writing helpful error messages

Here are a few simple guide lines you could follow to make sure your error messages are as helpful (and as informative) as possible:

Error messages should:

• Clarify what happened in a simple language. Don’t mention any of the technical details.
• Clarify whether it’s the user’s fault or the application’s fault. If it’s the user’s, then explain what she did wrong and how to avoid it in her second attempt.
• Tell users how to recover from the error. If it’s a complicated issue, then you could point them to a page with helpful information.
• be as short as possible. People won’t read long error messages, and would rather trying again and again until they get it right. So don’t include anything that’s not directly related to the error (such as long apologies or promises to fix the error).

Pretty simple stuff. The last you want is people leaving your site because they faced an awkward error message.