Should error messages apologize?
Should error messages apologize?
We are having a discussion on our team about an error message that says "Sorry, you do not have permission to access this feature. Please contact your administrator for assistance." Is it appropr...
IMO error messages should be as short and precise as possible (the typical user doesn't read past the word "error" before phoning support), with the option of not having them translated (this makes researching a particular error message online much easier). Please leave out "contact so-and-so" crap, because it leads to people excessively contacting that particular person for shit they could easily fix by themselves.
I'm disgusted with some people's reaction to alert messages. They have a close reflex, they don't even know what they closed. Sometimes I'm trying to help someone and a message appears, while I'm trying to focus my sight they have already closed the message.
Yes, they close the message and then they call support. And then they get furious if nobody can help them without seeing the error message.
Yes.
"I've been a bad bot. Spank me!"
As long as it's not "oops, something went wrong"
I hate "oops".
A sane comprise:
{Friendly error message sentence}
{Appropriate code for developer debugging}
[Take a Screenshot Button]
In a perfect world, anyway
Next to the screenshot button, a "copy error to clipboard" button that copies all the relevant info for a user to post in a bug report.