36 of 365 – errors design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Errors are a part of design because designers need to consider that users may try to use their design in unintended ways, and try to offer guidance or reminders about how to use a system correctly.
In general, there are two kinds of errors: Slips and Mistakes.
Slips occur when a user does something out of unconscious habit, such as driving past a turn on a commonly traveled route towards a well-known destination, or visiting a website that they visit all the time, when trying to get to a new one. An example of a preventable slip in software is when you use the word attachment in your Gmail, but don’t add an attachment, Gmail reminds you that you may want to add the attachment before sending.
Mistakes, however, occur when a user makes a conscious mistake, like driving too far into a parking space and bumping the front of your car. Cars can prevent this kind of issue with alarms that let you know when you are about to run into something while parking or backing up.
In this illustration, I created an error dialog that makes the user admit that they are sure that they want to remove a lot of potentially precious data.
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