Comments on: 10 Tips on Writing Hero-worthy Error Messages

By: Russ

Russ — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:42:42 +0000

Excellent post! I’m currently looking at ways to improve functionality/ease-of-use for web applications that we give to customers. Sometimes, these end up being used by the general public and I felt like the old, “Oops! You broke it. We’ll take a look and try to fix it.” messages weren’t really doing much good.

Taking a look at the error reports, a lot of times they are just from the user spamming the refresh button hoping their square peg would go in the round hole. Hopefully we’ll be able to show them the square hole or the round peg, depending on the situation.

By: Evgeniy Dolzhenko

Evgeniy Dolzhenko — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 14:38:25 +0000

I believe that in case of Firefox that’s over the top humility. And I’m not the one in that league :) http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2009/09/getting-rid-of-firefoxs-well-this-is-embarrassing-message/

By: Haris

Haris — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:05:26 +0000

What about writing all the errors at the top of the page with a link “Click here to fix this issue?”. Is it user friendly?

By: cha.rles_websit

cha.rles_websit — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:11:02 +0000

I enjoy this article, it is very useful. nice. thanks Christine..!!!

By: cha.rles_websit

cha.rles_websit — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:08:53 +0000

I enjoy this article, it’s very nice tips

By: Steven Howe

Steven Howe — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:56:13 +0000

That’s a pretty cool idea Robert and I have seen it on a couple of other sites. One thing to be wary of though is that you must have a ‘back’ button to allow the user to make changes if they still want to.

For example – if you accidentally put your (non mandatory) telephone number in the zip code box and submit, when you arrive on the secondary page you are presented with the zip code box with your telephone number in it and are asked to change to a valid input. It is then the realisation sinks in that you maight have totally screwed the form up (but still enterede valid data values) – you search for the back button and it isn’t there…

By: Free Arabic Movies

Free Arabic Movies — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:44:53 +0000

Great tips
thank you very much

By: Tony

Tony — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:44:15 +0000

A good article. I favour capturing the errors server side, returning to the page anchored at the error messages and offering the message at that point. This helps overcome some accessibility issues for devices that still don’t support javascript fully.

I particularly like Robert van Hoesel’s idea of filtering the errors out on large forms, rather than having the user skip through the form to locate the errors – however I may worry about the missing fields not being presented in context, especially if they are similarly labelled.

Sometimes reading the the form where you have made one mistake – can allow you a second chance to correct something that has been misspelled elsewhere (especially if you have a habit of quickly typing in your address etc..)

By: Robert van Hoesel

Robert van Hoesel — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:13:37 +0000

A new way of showing error messages I’m experimenting with is through asking the wrong fields again on an other page.
For example; If your customer should fill in his address and forgot his zip code you ask on the next page to fill in the zip code, with an elegant error message. This points out to the user what’s wrong. Also the data filled in in the huge form isn’t lost. I really hate it when you have to scroll down a form again to find that one and only field you forgot to fill in. If you’d show only the wrong field(s) on a next page the user also understands you can’t go on without filling all the stuff in.

By: victor

victor — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:10:44 +0000

That's it, yah ur right josh!... Heat Pump Prices