There's another way to approach this, that I think at least conceptually can help the designer make the right choices. We should all eradicate the word "error" from our design vocabularies.
I propose that the user NEVER makes errors. The user may do unexpected things, or provide unexpected input, or act in ways that the system is not sophisticated enough to deal with. Or that the sponsor of the system chooses not to deal with. But no error has occurred. Even a slip, where the user acts in a way contrary to their own intention, can be anticipated. I personally think we should always avoid the word error in our artifacts. Most certainly in the UI. But even in our internal documentation and discussions. Calling these incidents "unexpected events" instead of "errors" leads to a totally different mind-set about how to deal with them. To begin: Let's start examining our expectations. Paul Eisen Principal User Experience Architect tandemseven -----Original Message----- From: Dan Saffer <snip> The system should never present an error message to a user unless the user has done everything right but the system itself cannot respond correctly. Users should otherwise never be allowed to make "errors." <snip> ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
