85. People Will Always Make Mistakes; There is no fail-safe product

85. People Will Always Make Mistakes

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• Caption: clipartuse.com

Assume that something will go wrong

• Something will always go wrong! Could be the fault of the user, software, or designer.
• It is very hard to create an error-free system. It is much more expensive and time-consuming, and you will never fully succeed.
• When in the testing phase make sure you're utilizing the people who will actually be using your product. They will know best which errors are most egregious.
• Think ahead to what the likely mistakes will be. Find out through testing the mistakes people are making and correct them.

The best error message is no error message

• We never want to see the error message, but when something does go wrong it’s important that people know what to do about it.
• How to write an error message
• Tell the person what they did
• Explain the problem
• Instruct the person how to correct it
• Write in plain language using active, not passive, voice
• Show an example

Good vs. Bad Error message

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• For an additional resource for designing good error messages check out this article from UX Planet.
• Caption: UXplanet.org