Designing for Errors

As I was browsing through my usual barrage of RSS feeds the other day, I came across a link to a very cool little website: MotorMouths.com.


As an interaction designer, graphic designer and overall car buff, I was impressed with not only the visual design, but the quality of user experience. Finding cars is simple, yet not simplistic, you can search using a variety of terms using their well-designed search function. You are rewarded with a clear, well designed list of results, decent sized photographs of what you asked the system for and drilling down through a manufacturer's line even feels easy, quick and fun. The interaction is flexibly designed to support both standard hierarchical access structure as well as more serendipitous discoveries. This makes sense in the context of car shopping, and finding the most appropriate vehicle to suit your needs. Cleverly, the site aggregates content from other review-oriented sources.



The user experience was pretty good so I thought I would test out their search algorithm and error messages by entering a query for a specialty Russian-made supercar that I knew probably didn't exist in their database, a TVR Tuscan (I couldn't find any sales figures, but I can't imagine they are over a few hundred per year and maybe zero in the USA, here's a Wikipedia entry about the car). I got a slightly off-putting error message: "That doesn't sound like a car. Try entering a model or make."


Not awful, but what bugs me is that it assumes that the error was my fault. As the user, I entered something that doesn't sound like a car, even though it most certainly is. Next, I tried something a little more mainstream, that actually will eventually be sold in the US, a Ford Fiesta. Entering "Ford Fiesta" returned a list of other Ford vehicles, and just searching "Fiesta", not surprising, resulted in the same error message as before.

While this error doesn't fully violate one of Nielsen's well-worn Heuristics "Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors", it does offer a suggestion: "Try entering a model or make," albeit an unhelpful one. It seems that a little softer approach to error messaging would greatly enhance an otherwise very good user experience. Maybe something more like:

"I'm sorry, I've never heard of that car. Please try a new search" or
"I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with that car. Please try a new search."

This is a good example that designing the user experience in regards to what you expect the user to do is just as important as designing for interactions that you don't expect. Error messages are often considered in afterthought, when often they are more prevalent then we like to admit.

Beltrame Leffler Advertising is an independent brand focused Indianapolis advertising agency specializing in strategic planning, positioning, and quality creative execution.