The guidelines for creating effective error messages have been the same for 20 years. Good error message should include: Show
The Web's most common error message, 404, violates most of these guidelines. I recommend that you write a custom 404 error message instead of relying on the server's built-in "page not found" message. New GuidelinesThe complexity of Web pages has introduced the need for a guideline that wasn't required in the old days. With a DOS interface, users type a command and the error message is displayed on the next line of the TTY. In modern GUIs, users click a command and the error message is displayed in a big dialog box in the middle of the screen, and it doesn't go away until users acknowledge it. On the Web, however, error messages are often hidden as modest text on an overloaded page, leading to a new guideline: Error messages should be
I have frequently observed users make a mistake in a Web form, only to get exactly the same form back from the server with no visible indication of what went wrong. Often, a small error message appeared on the top of the page, but since users look at the page's actionable part first (i.e., the area with the form fields), they don't typically notice the error. A related design flaw is to indicate an error state solely by turning the field label red. This violates one of the oldest and simplest rules for making technology accessible to users with disabilities: Never use color as the only encoding mechanism; always include redundant cues that color-blind users can see. Two other guidelines can make the error situation less unpleasant for users:
Opportunity to Educate UsersFinally, you probably already know Nielsen's First Law of Computer Documentation: people don't read it. This finding is even stronger for websites, where users truly shy away from any reading that is not essential to their task. Click on Help? Never. Users read system documentation only when they are in trouble (that's the Second Law). They are particularly attentive when they want to recover from an error. Given this, you can use error messages as an educational resource to impart a small amount of knowledge to users. Of course, error messages should be brief and to the point, as should all Web content. However, error messages can still teach users a bit about how the system works and give them information they need to use it better. To further that end, the Web's underlying technology makes another guideline possible:
What are Aristotle's three main means of persuasion?Over 2,000 years ago the Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that there were three basic ways to persuade an audience of your position: ethos, logos, and pathos.
Which of the following might a persuasive speaker be striving to influence in a speech?Persuasive speeches “intend to influence the beliefs, attitudes, values, and acts of others.” Unlike an informative speech, where the speaker is charged with making some information known to an audience, in a persuasive speech the speaker attempts to influence people to think or behave in a particular way.
Which of the following is are among the three elements of credibility?Social scientists agree that credibility can indeed be divided into three elements. Competence, trust and goodwill, which unsurprisingly did not deviate too much from Aristotle's original work.
What is a persuasive speech's proposition?The proposition of your speech is the overall direction of the content and how that relates to the speech goal. A persuasive speech will fall primarily into one of three categories: propositions of fact, value, or policy.
|