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September 01, 2005
Honey v. Vinegar
I like to imagine error messages are more often than not composed by techie types - folks who are perfectly happy to call a spade a spade and scratch their heads when you suggest the label might not sit well with all spades. Techies code stuff that will process provided you follow the process correctly. A form doesn't submit because you overlooked entering your zip? Well, that's down to you. The error message tells you so. End of story. Wanna go get a cup of coffee?
The thing is, any error message that implies your visitor is an idiot, careless or poorly informed about how you have set up your system is a bad error message. It's a bitter pill to ask your visitors to swallow. Throwing in a "please" doesn't really make the pill taste much better - "Please correct your error" plays little better than "Correct your error." Nor does adopting the "passive-aggressive" angle, as in "We're sorry, but you didn't do this correctly."
Posted by Don at September 1, 2005 07:32 AM
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