How to get users to read error messages?

Question

If you program for a nontechnical audience, you find yourself at a high risk that users will not read your carefully worded and enlightening error messages, but just click o

Answer 1

One good tip I've learned is that you should write a dialog box like a newspaper article. Not in the size-sense, but in the importance-sense. Let me explain.

You should write the most important things to read, first, and provide more detailed information second.

In other words, this is no good:

There was a problem loading the file, the file might have been deleted, or
it might be present on a network share that you don't have access to at
your present location.

Do you want to retry opening the file?

Instead, change the order:

Problem loading file, do you want to retry?

There was a problem loading the file, the file might have been deleted, or
it might be present on a network share that you don't have access to at
your present location.

This way, the user can read just as much as he wants, or bothers, and still have an idea about what's being asked.