Rimmer, J;
Wakeman, I;
Sheeran, L;
Sasse, MA;
(2000)
Messages from a tangled web.
In:
Proceedings of the OZCHI 2000: Interfacing reality in the new millennium.
(pp. pp. 4-11).
CSIRO Mathematics, Information and Statistics: Sydney , Australia.
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Abstract
HCI has an established history of criticising system error messages and offering design guidelines for their improvement. This paper continues this tradition by exploring users’ attitudes and recovery strategies to web error messages, examining the variety of messages produced by popular web-sites and presenting design guidelines for error messages. We believe this is the first academic work on web error messages. We first investigated users’ conceptions of error messages and recovery strategies for a broad section of users (novice to expert). This revealed that standard error messages have a poor construction, which goes against most (if not all) of the guidelines for writing effective error messages. We then examined a range of popular information and ecommerce sites from the US, Europe and Australia and we offer a critique of the different styles of dealing with errors. Finally we provide a checklist of design considerations for use by web designers and site managers that pay close attention to good customer service and experience.
| Type: | Proceedings paper |
|---|---|
| Title: | Messages from a tangled web |
| Event: | the OZCHI 2000: Interfacing reality in the new millennium |
| ISBN: | 0643066330 |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Publisher version: | http://www.ozchi.org/ozchi2009/history.html |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Error messages, customer experience, Web, eCommerce, 404, design guidelines |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Computer Science |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/20323 |
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