There is no understating the importance of error messages – they will, one day, be encountered. It is impossible to create an entirely perfect product and it is important to have a good backup if something happens. This story gives six tips (with examples on designing perfect error messages). https://bit.ly/2vi5cZo
One thing that I noticed while reading the article is that this sentence was highlighted by many people: “if sentences contain eight words or less, readers understand 100 percent of the information.” It’s very funny that the sentence has more than 8 words, but I do not think that it is a detrmiment. I think this sentence is important because it illustrates the point that readers do scan a lot of information – basically saying that if a user message is long, the whole point won’t come across.
Another thing I that I found important was the part where it mentioned to not overcommunicate the problem. Closely entertwined with the previous paragraph, this gives the example of not stating too much in the message. A way to get around that is to include any solutions or extraneous information in a drop down tab that is optional for users. Users will be able to click if they want, but it will not burden the technologically challenged with too much information.
LIS 4022 Spring 2020 