Standard error messages

Question

Very often we have to make up standard messages to show user. It can be an error or a warning message, whatever.

Has anybody seen somewhere a site with such messages?

Answer 1

You should not standardise error messages, indeed you should attempt to make them unique. That means they are much more easily searchable via Google for your users, and your support desk can be sure the error message is actually coming from your application when talking to users on the phone

Answer 2

Well, from a UI standpoint, standardizing an error message design is not a bad thing.....For example, several UI toolkits such as Blueprint, Jquery UI, and YUI have standard error and message style definitions. Then, calling errors is simply a matter of calling a div with class "error" or "message" to properly format a standard error message look and feel on whatever message you're trying to convey. Having this layout for error divs defined ensures that the user becomes familiar with the error reporting mechanism and will understand their intended message. For example, I think every user on earth is familiar with the blue screen of death or those annoying dialogs that Windows uses to convey messages.

Here's one style example from Blueprint: http://www.blueprintcss.org/tests/parts/forms.html

I like the fact that Blueprint chose to color code the messages based on intent, such as error, notice, success with the standard traffic light color analogies. No matter how custom the app, it will feel familiar to any user.