Demystifying Error Messages

Salut comment vas-tu, cela fait longtemps que l'on ne s'est pas vus.

If you're not good at French, you will have a hard time understanding the above line. Its French for "hi how are you, long time no see". 

Now try to remember how many times you had to put your mind at work when your system said something which sounded like Klingon and left you scratching your head. It hardly matters if you are a tech-savvy person or someone who just knows enough to get the things done, sooner or later everyone has had an encounter to such error messages. Though these error messages are very useful for the developers to understand what went wrong and correct the application accordingly, telling end user about this can be a challenging task as developers will display the error exactly how system said it.

In this article we'll see few sample error messages written in a complicated way and translate them into a simple sentence which can be understood by someone who is not so comfortable with technical jargon.

To a non technical user words like unhandled, null, fatal etc. words make no sense. Try to replace those with words which are used in daily communication so that the message can be passed to the user loud and clear.

Certainly there's a problem with the application because a required asset is missing or not usable anymore. It will be easier for the user if the message says it in simple words.

Memory leak is a common issue with most of the application and user need to be informed about it. Instead of mentioning it as lack of resources, saying insufficient RAM will be more user friendly message.

There can be times when your antivirus prevents application performing certain tasks due to security reasons. Try to convey the message in simple English as user needs to know about this and stop using application until there's a fix provided.

System might show an error if supplied data is not in a format as expected by the program. User need to know this in simple language and possibly given a direction to what to do in order to fix it.

Exceptions codes are super useful for the developer as it gives them a direct target to hit; but to end user it's just alien language and carries no value. A human centered message would certainly tell them about the problem.

Certainly a non tech-savvy user will find it impossible to perform network related tasks and fix the issue by him/herself. The message should be helpful enough to give them a direction about what to do next.

Words like credentials, entitlements are too development environment centric. All user need to know is why application stopped him from accessing a certain section of the application.

Image: Ann H | pexels.com

Finally, error messages, though annoying, are an unavoidable part of using technology. Understanding and decoding the language of error messages can help your users better understand what is causing the problem and how to fix it. As a UX writer and designer, we have a responsibility to provide clear, simple, and effective error messages so that users can recover from problems and continue using the product. By focusing on user-centric error messages, we can improve the overall user experience and build trust and loyalty with our users.

Thanks for your time. Do share your thoughts on this and anything which can add more value to it.

Writer: Jitendra Kumar Anand