Error Message Text - Best Practices

Question

We are changing some of the text for our old, badly written error messages. What are some resources for best practices on writing good error messages (specifically for Wind

Answer 1

The ultimate best practice is to prevent the user from causing errors in the first place.

Don't tell users anything they don't care about; error code 5064 doesn't mean a thing to anyone. Don't tell them they did something wrong; disallow it in the first place. Don't blame them, especially not for mistakes your software made. Above all, when there is a problem, tell them how to fix it so they can move on and get some work done.