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When life gives you lemons, write better error messages

wix-ux.com

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Re: When life gives you lemons, write better error messages

#53

Post by nazgul17 »

magicalhippo wrote: post #2

Error: File not found Which file?!?!?! Anyway, I disagree strongly on the technical jargon. Ok, if it's not really an error and the user can retry or similar sure. But if it's bad times, an exception or similar, don't care about the user. Instead include as much detail as you need. A non-technical user won't be able to do anything anyway, and a sanitized error message means support or a technical user has a much hard…

You can have both of you provide an error code that your support team can look up in the logs to find the complete error message.

Re: When life gives you lemons, write better error messages

#55

Post by aeternum »

harperlee wrote: post #3

Hopefully this becomes a reversal in the trend of giving less and less context to the user. I'm not against the considerations of the article regarding the user and its state of mind, but please do add as much technical detail as possible! Even if an error message is a cryptic error code, that's better than a "Something went wrong" message. This is not better, or even friendlier, UX. An error code can be referenced,…

Hopefully but seems unlikely. The example good error message wix-ux provides still has near zero context.

Re: When life gives you lemons, write better error messages

#56

Post by superjan »

magicalhippo wrote: post #2

Error: File not found Which file?!?!?! Anyway, I disagree strongly on the technical jargon. Ok, if it's not really an error and the user can retry or similar sure. But if it's bad times, an exception or similar, don't care about the user. Instead include as much detail as you need. A non-technical user won't be able to do anything anyway, and a sanitized error message means support or a technical user has a much hard…

I’ve learned this lesson over the years. It is quite common that users make a screenshot of the error with their phone, and send it on to support with hardly any details. The fact that errors become recognizably different is also an improvement: the user and support staffer can recognize recurring errors, and notice patterns.

Re: When life gives you lemons, write better error messages

#57

Post by frevib »

magicalhippo wrote: post #2

Error: File not found Which file?!?!?! Anyway, I disagree strongly on the technical jargon. Ok, if it's not really an error and the user can retry or similar sure. But if it's bad times, an exception or similar, don't care about the user. Instead include as much detail as you need. A non-technical user won't be able to do anything anyway, and a sanitized error message means support or a technical user has a much hard…

To the user: friendly message with uuid.

In the logs: detailed technical message with uuid.

Re: When life gives you lemons, write better error messages

#58

Post by Olivia_Rio »

I still run into error messages like "Error", "Permission denied", or "Bad directory" that leave users guessing. Google's guide on writing error messages is pretty good: https://developers.google.com/tech-writing/error-messages. The basic formula is simple: explain the problem, then explain the solution.

Re: When life gives you lemons, write better error messages

#59

Post by setr »

Insanity wrote: post #26
magicalhippo wrote: post #2

Error: File not found Which file?!?!?! Anyway, I disagree strongly on the technical jargon. Ok, if it's not really an error and the user can retry or similar sure. But if it's bad times, an exception or similar, don't care about the user. Instead include as much detail as you need. A non-technical user won't be able to do anything anyway, and a sanitized error message means support or a technical user has a much hard…

IMO if you show an error to end users it needs to be actionable. Tell them what to do instead (e.g retry or wait, use other input file, etc etc). So don't say "InvalidArgumentException xyz", say "Expected a number but got 'hello'". This doesn't always work, but essentially hide tech details from users. If you must, include a bit of extra information (a request number or whatever) that helps you log dive.

The action on an unhandled / unexpected exception is “please submit this information to your closest administrator”

And then dump whatever you want, with a copy button

Re: When life gives you lemons, write better error messages

#60

Post by pseudohadamard »

harperlee wrote: post #3

Hopefully this becomes a reversal in the trend of giving less and less context to the user. I'm not against the considerations of the article regarding the user and its state of mind, but please do add as much technical detail as possible! Even if an error message is a cryptic error code, that's better than a "Something went wrong" message. This is not better, or even friendlier, UX. An error code can be referenced,…

Anything is better than "something went wrong". It is quite possibly the stupidest error message every created, we know something went wrong because whatever we tried to do errored out. The best description I've seen of it was in a book draft:

  When web UI developers die they go to what appears to be waiting area before
  the gates of paradise.  However no matter what they do to get in, anything
  they try just pops up a message saying "Something went wrong".  No other
  information, just "Something went wrong" over and over again.  Then they
  wonder why there are flames and screaming all around them...
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