Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Painful Monster.com Error Message

I’ve never passed an invalid parameter before. But I imagine it’s gotta hurt a bit.Isn’t there some kind of surgery I can get for this?

By the way, this was the entire contents of the error screen. I would’ve screencapped the entire screenful of white in all its blinding glory, but why bother?

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A co-worker sent me a link to Jack Bellis’ very good review of FreshBooks, an accounting web app. Find it here: Usability Institute- Review of FreshBooks.com.

Blogged with Flock

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Flickr Error Message

Now *this* is a great error message! I just got it while posting the Paypal screengrab (see previous post).

Let’s talk about why it’s great:

• It clearly states the problem, and offers multiple solution paths.
• It speaks to me in English, not SQL or ASP.NET.
• It uses vernacular (“Sometimes web services can be a bit flaky”) to reassure me that Flickr is run by caring people, not automatons.

The only nits I have with the message: It’s a bit busy. Yes, there’s multiple solution paths accessible from here, but it’s a bit slow to parse it from the visual standpoint.

Also, it took me a second to figure out that they were talking about my blog’s configuration details. The addition of that one word would’ve made all the difference.

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Paypal Error Message

Well, the post’s title says it all.

P.S. If you’re less than impressed by this post’s title, go read my previous post, “Oh Brother Intellifax 4100, Where Art Thou?”

Now *that’s* a good title.

I walked around all day yesterday quite impressed with myself that I came up with that.

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