Short description | | ‘Sorry, an error has occurred.’ Sounds familiar? Generic error messages like these aren't helpful to anyone. Not the user, not the developer – and least of all the project team, who has to explain why the application ‘suddenly isn’t working’.
Error messages are more than just technical instructions. They are interruptions to the workflow that are triggered by the system after a user's action. A good error message clearly indicates:
• What happened?
• Why did it happen? (if possible)
• What are the next steps?
Good error messages are a team effort. Rather than being created at the end of an implementation, they are an integral part of the design process. In this workshop, we strengthen our common understanding and our ability to translate technical complexity into clear, human communication.
Together, we want to learn how to phrase helpful, simple and empathetic error messages – without technical jargon, unnecessary hurdles or finger-pointing. Using various ILIAS examples, you will practise writing good error messages and suggestions for improvement. We will put a new guideline for error messages up for discussion so that we can work out together what knowledge you might need to be able to write good error messages while developing ILIAS. |
