How Would You Like It If Your Grandmother Was Crying?

Several years ago I worked for a bank with a very nice older woman. Picture the media’s representation of the word “grandmother” and you’ll have a good idea.

As she was working one day, she began to quietly cry and had a panic-stricken look on her face. When we asked her what was wrong, she told us that she had broken the law and that the police would soon be coming for her. We were all stunned. She had been working (on a local intranet application) when her browser suddenly quit and she was told she had “performed an illegal operation” she sobbed.

Too often, we ignore our error pages. What could possibly go wrong, right? Well, apparently you can make a nice older lady cry, and who wants that?

So instead, it is worth spending some time developing a good error page. It should tell your user in polite and easy-to-understand language:

• An error has occurred. Let them know it is not their fault. Let them know that you are constantly working on this site and that could be the issue.
• Tells the user what options they have now. Include returning to the home page or contacting the web team to let them know of the error.

Mistakes happen and they are not the end of the world. We need only to have a contingency plan in place to handle any possible issues to make sure that our users have a truly seamless experience.