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Making FAIL more fun!

(Turning a bad thing into something delightful)

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Error Messages Can Be Cryptic

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Post by Numberwang on Fri Jul 24, 2009 7:08 pmWhen I try retrieving podcasts on the podcast playlist I get this error message:http://imgur.com/z1tuf.jpg

I have tried several different podcasts. It's all rather cryptic. Has anyone encountered similar problems?

Several posts later…….

VLC_help wrote: Yep. It doesn't work correctly. I added a feature request for this. https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/3003Cone MasterPosts: 10980 Joined: Wed Sep 13, 2006 2:16 pm

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Error Messages Can Be Unhelpful

Or Impossible…

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Error Messages Can be Too Wordy

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“This is what all error messages feel like to users… No matter how nicely your error messages are worded, this is how they will be interpreted” Alan Cooper

Unhelpful/Cryptic error messages make the user feel stupid.

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Name that error

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• Tell the user what happened•Tell the user how to fix whatever is wrong• Tell the user what happened in their own vocabulary

How to write good error messages

Helpful Error Message

• What’s wrong• Suggests how to fix it

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Transmission: Can’t remove the car key when it’s inan unsafe state, when it’s prone to movement.

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3.5" floppy disks: the top-right corner is shaped in a certain way so that the disk cannot be inserted upside-down.

Microwave ovens: a door switch automatically disconnects theactivation button when the door of the oven is opened

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Poka Yoke in Web Dev and Design

Predictive Text Matches against results indicate popularity and the likelihood users will find a relevant result.

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Poka Yoke in Web Dev and Design

Immediate feedback or inline messaging prior to form submission –passwords and validation

Status and progress bars can reduce user frustration and minimize abandonment in shopping cards

Asking users for confirmation before they perform important actions like delete.

Visual queues of state changes on the page – inline AJAX confirmations.

Golden Rules of Error Messages:Alan Cooper provides these three guidelines:

Be Polite

Never forget that an error message box is the program reporting on its failure to do its job, and it is interrupting the user to do this. The error message box must be unfailingly polite. It must never even hint that the user caused this problem, because that is simply not true from the user's perspective. The customer is always right.

Be IlluminatingThe error message must illuminate the problem for the user. This means it must give them the kind of information they need to make an appropriate determination to solve the program's problem. It needs to make clear the scope of the problem, what the alternatives are, what the program will do as a default, and what information was lost, if any. The problem should treat this as a confession.

Be HelpfulIt is wrong for the program to just dump the problem on the user's lap and wipe its hands of the matter. It should directly offer to implement at least one suggested solution right there on the error message box. It should offer buttons that will take care of the problem in various ways. If a printer is missing, the message box should offer options for deferring the printout or selecting another printer.

Be Delightful13

“Rather than being annoyed with GMail, and blaming Chrome,I am completely disarmed by this error. It makes me laugh!”

..it reminds me that the developers working on this software took time to make their error messages not only user friendly, but fun.

-a happy user

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Keep it polite, helpful and illuminating

• Cryptic Errors can be saved for error logs• Be polite and keep users informed sothey are not made to feel

like they did anything wrong• Provide users with an alternative.

How might we redesign this to be more user friendly?

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Making FAIL More Fun

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http://www.errorwear.comEmbrace your computer problems.

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Thank you

Dawa Riley dawachan@gmail.com @dawachan

Errors can be made friendlier or at least less painful for the end user and may be

even FUN.