How not to do error messages
I am currently proof-reading a software which I haven't written (which is very funny as I am not native english speaker, but my english is better than the one of the guys which wrote this software).
And my question is: why the hell did they add an exclamation mark in each error message?
For a user, is extremely disgusting to get something like:
You are not allowed to access this resource !
It's unpleasant, unpolite, ugly and finally it's confusing, talks in term of programmers (that "resource" jargon which only the programmer knows to what refers with that term; even I had a hard time to discover what he meant with that)
It would have been better something more relaxed, less scaring. Something like:
An error has occured. As you have not been active for a time, you need to enter again your login and password in order to continue, as this page is allowed only for registered users.
I know it's longer, and it is not the best replacement one could find, but I have been reviewing more than 2000 strings of text today and I would like to find something more human in this piece of cr… err… software!
