Error message — That’s too lengthy
“Can we try to make it one line error message? It will reduce the friction”
“2 line error message? Who reads so much nowadays?”
“That’s too much text”
Sounds familiar?
Heard often from PM, peers etc?
Me too… :)
The next thing I did after that was … sat for hours and pushed myself hard to compress a two-liner message into one.
Sometimes I succeeded and sometimes I had to settle with a 2 liner.
Every time I saw that two-liner error copy, it pinched me.
But things have changed now. I don’t feel intimidated with 2 liners anymore.
Yup, I still receive critique but able to convince folks that 2 liner is a non-issue. Users will read.
Wondering??? what led to a change in mindset. Here’s the story.
One of my former PM was super obsessed with copy length. When it came to copies, she won’t trade-off that easily. Her love for words came from her journalistic background.
I once proposed a two-liner error message. Her feedback was “Can we try to make it one line error copy? It will reduce the friction”.
As usual, I spent hours. But making it a one-liner was a struggle. At the end, I couldn’t.
She said, “Take one more day. I’ll also think of something and DM you ideas on slack”.
My next day’s best achievement was that I eliminated 3 words from the overall error message. But yeah, couldn’t make it one line.
I reached out to her the next day and said “Couldn’t make it one line but it’s shorter than before. 3 words eliminated. It looks fine. Still open to change. Any one-liner ideas you came up with?”.
She replied, “Had a pretty tight schedule. I’m yet to spend time on it. But I’m available after lunch. Let’s brainstorm together”.
I took a 2-second pause and said “Yes”,
During that pause, I sensed my tiredness. I was done with thinking any further. Or you can say overthinking any further. At that moment, my mind imagined passing the baton to her. The only role, I imagined for myself in brainstorm is to watch her race hard to reach the finish line. If she wins, we will celebrate with Ginger Tea. If she doesn’t, I will pat her back for trying hard and still go out for a Ginger Tea.
After confirming my participation in the brainstorm, I returned to my desk.
I seriously wanted a break. So decided to have lunch early. Food and Tea work best for me to press the mind’s reset button.
As I was munching, my mind was penduluming between the error message and the food. Alike, subscription popup box, a question asked by a colleague popped up in my mind out of nowhere. She asked me “What do you want users to Think, Do, Feel at this point?”.
I relooked at an error message from the Think, Do, Feel angle. The two-line message felt rational and justified. Interestingly, that colleague and this PM were the same. She transitioned from User Research to PM several months ago.
In the meeting, before the brainstorm kick-off, I put forth this old question.
Me — Before we start, wanted to share my thoughts.
PM — Ok
Me — While having lunch, I recalled an old question of yours
PM — “What …???”.
Me — Remember the “What do you want user to Think, Do, Feel?” question.
PM — Yup! I remember.
Me — When I think from that angle, the overall message makes sense. Copy feels like a non-issue. What do you think?
PM — [Intently looking at the copy and thinking] Yeah, looks like so. But if we can make it a one-line copy, friction will be less.
Me — Friction is at what level? think, do or feel?
PM — It’s too texty. Users will not feel like reading it at all or will leave halfway.
Me — Ok. I see the assumption. Let’s roleplay and get into user shoes. Imagine yourself as a user. Who has a medical emergency need of INR 2,000/-. You chose to install this digital lending app over others. You have successfully registered yourself. You encounter an input error after finishing 60% of the loan application journey. On seeing a 2 line error copy what will you do?
Close this app and download another app from the Playstore?
OR
Won’t read at all. Remove whatever you entered in the input field. Enter input again and press the Submit CTA. This time you may or may not have entered valid input.
PM — I see what you are saying. I’m convinced copy length is not a very big friction.
Me — Yes, it is not. To clarify, I’m not saying the copy length is not important. It indeed is. But shouldn’t rank 1st on the scale of importance. Quantity alone shouldn’t be the key criteria to accept, dismiss, or conceive an idea. Qualitative aspects focused on clarity should be given due consideration.
Final thoughts
I get the intent behind making it a one-liner. The intent is to make information processing as lightweight as possible. Length is one factor of making a user’s mind feel lightweight. But clarity is critical too.
A vague one-liner will make users think more. May lead user towards taking an action based on guess. Which makes the probability of recovering from error 50:50.
If a clear two-liner or more, increases the probability of recovering from error then a two-liner shouldn’t feel like a pinch. It should indeed be perceived as useful, usable, and valuable.
