Polite Error Message
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Error Message Guidelines
Navigation Non-Profit Websites Personas Persuasive Design Prototyping Psychology and UX Research Methods Search Social Media Strategy User Testing Visual Design Web Usability Writing for the Web Young Users Author Jakob Nielsen Don Norman Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini See all authors… All Authors (hide) Aurora Bedford Raluca Budiu Susan Farrell Therese Fessenden Kim Flaherty Sarah Gibbons Page Laubheimer Angie Li Hoa Loranger Kate Meyer error message text Jakob Nielsen Don Norman Kara Pernice Christian Rohrer Amy Schade Katie Sherwin Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini Kathryn Whitenton Kate Williamson Recent Articles Design Critiques: Encourage a Positive Culture to Improve Products The Negativity Bias in User Experience Field Studies Journey Mapping in Real Life: A Survey of UX Practitioners Consistency in the Omnichannel Experience See all articles… Popular Articles Usability 101: Introduction to Usability Top 10 Mistakes in Web Design How Users Read on the Web F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design 10 Best Intranets of 2016 When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods Response Times: The 3 Important Limits Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users The Fold Manifesto: Why the Page Fold Still Matters Error Message Guidelines by Jakob Nielsen on June 24, 2001 Topics: Application Design Summary: Established wisdom holds that good error messages are polite, precise, and constructive. The Web brings a few new guidelines: Make error messages clearly visible, reduce the work required to fix the problem, and educate users along the way. The guidelines for creating effective error mes
at 1:38 pmFilling out forms isn't always an easy task. No matter how simple you make it, users will make mistakes. Do your form error messages give users a feeling of worry or comfort? Error messages that are too alarming can make users abandon the good error message text form to seek safety from the unknown.Error messages that reassure users can make
Error Message List
it easy for them to correct their mistakes and continue with the form. The design techniques below will help
500 Error Message Examples
make your error messages more reassuring so that users feel comfortable completing your form.Avoid Negative WordsWords that have a negative tone have no place in form error messages. Negative words can https://www.nngroup.com/articles/error-message-guidelines/ make users feel like they’ve made a huge mistake, leading them to think the situation is worse than it is.When users feel fearful or anxious, it’s hard for them to think rationally to fix their mistakes. You don’t want to scare users to the point that they have to call on someone else for help when the issue is easily fixable. And you don’t http://uxmovement.com/forms/how-to-make-your-form-error-messages-more-reassuring/ want to scare them so bad that they leave your form.There are ways of telling users they’ve made a mistake without making them feel like they’ve made a mistake. Don’t put the user’s focus on themselves by emphasizing that they made a mistake. Instead, put their focus on the form by pointing out what they need to do to fix the errors.The tone of your error messages should feel polite and professional. The choice of words you use in your error messages affect the user’s emotions. Choose to use reassuring words, not negative ones.Highlight Error Fields in Orange or Yellow, Not RedRed is the most common color used to highlight error fields. It’s effective in making them visible, but it can also overstimulate users and raise their pulse rate, making them feel like they’ve seriously screwed up on the form. Red is also associated with danger, which is not what you want users to feel when they make a mistake.Orange and yellow are warm colors that not only make error fields visible, but they make users feel less alarmed when they see it. These colors do not have a
Start here for a quick overview of the site Help Center Detailed answers to any questions you might have Meta Discuss the workings and policies of this site About Us Learn http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/39101/what-is-the-recommended-wording-for-a-generic-error-message more about Stack Overflow the company Business Learn more about hiring developers or posting ads with us User Experience Questions Tags Users Badges Unanswered Ask Question _ User Experience Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for user experience researchers and experts. Join them; it only takes a minute: Sign up Here's how it works: Anybody can ask a question Anybody can answer The best answers error message are voted up and rise to the top What is the recommended wording for a generic error message up vote 36 down vote favorite 19 What would be the best wording for a generic error message? With generic error message I mean a message for an error that has occured but there are no details on what the error is or how to recover from it. It will error message examples be used exclusively as a fallback solution when it is not possible to determine the error either because the server did not sent any additional details or there is a "probable" timeout... and other similar edge cases. It should be aimed to minimize the amount of frustration/anger. I've read a few threads but none of them seems to be 100% relevant Recommendations for good resources on writing good error messages Standardized (web) application error messages? [closed] This is actually a very close match but error reports are out of scope in my case What will be the Best notifications and error messages? Error Message Advice (for asynchronous/background tasks) Generic/vague error messages to pass to spammy users? copywriting error-message wording share|improve this question edited May 4 '13 at 13:32 JohnGB♦ 57.7k19154265 asked May 3 '13 at 15:11 Toni Toni Chopper 8821718 An unexpected error occurred... –Justin Meiners May 4 '13 at 0:07 add a comment| 9 Answers 9 active oldest votes up vote 39 down vote accepted A good error message should: Let you know what the problem is. Make you feel like there is something that you can do about it. Speak like a human, and be a consistent extensi