How do you write a validation message?
Below mentioned are few tips that when followed, error messages can also provide a pleasant experience to the user.
- Be Clear And Not Ambiguous.
- Be Short And Meaningful.
- Don’t Use Technical Jargons.
- Be Humble — Don’t Blame User.
- Avoid Negative Words.
- Give Direction to User.
- Be Specific And Relevant.
- Avoid Uppercase Text.
Why are most form validation error messages generic?
When benchmarking the checkout process of 100 major e-commerce sites, we found that most form validation error messages are woefully generic. This is problematic because it doesn’t do much in way of helping the user understand what the error is and how to fix it.
Which is the worst error message for validation?
Generic error messages tend to run the spectrum from unhelpful to completely useless. For instance, during benchmarking we saw the ‘Phone’ field yield error messages such as: The first error message is obviously the worst as it offers zero help as to why the input isn’t accepted – it just states that the site doesn’t consider it “valid”.
Can a form validation error be minimized or eliminated?
This is pretty much as bad as it gets. The user is just told their input is invalid with no hints as to why that is or how they can fix it. Form validation errors are inevitable. Yes, they can (and should) be minimized, but validation errors won’t ever be eliminated – they are a natural part of complex forms and user’s data input.
What causes a validation error in Adobe Acrobat Pro?
While this should not cause a validation error at all, the error message itself should at the very least tell the user what the problem is. In this case, the subject thought she might need to add a country code, but that also did not work (middle image). She then removed the country code but during editing, accidentally removed another digit too.