Interaction 19
4-10 February 2019
Seattle, WA
United States

Not an error — Error feedback design strategy

talk – 15 min | Feb 6 – 16:00

Error messages are not evil, but they can be sweet, delightful as well.

We live in a world filled with complicated things and they break in even more complicated ways. The more we can accomplish with our digital tools, the various kinds of errors we will get.

A thoughtful error feedback design is able to ease frustration and anger. It provides the possibility to not only user tolerance but also enhance brand identity and re-engage users.

In my session, I want to breakdown the psychological response of a user when he or she faces an error. I will also propose a three level design strategy including linguistic, visual and interactive solutions that can better assist error feedback design. Finally, I will share how error feedback design fits into our workflow at frog Design.

It’s gonna be light, fresh and useful.

About the speaker

Hong Zhu

Hong Zhu

I am an Interaction Designer at frog Design in Austin, TX. I joined frog Design about 3 years ago and grew to who I am right now. After I finished my undergraduate school in Beijing China, I moved to the United States for my graduate study. I went to Savannah College of Art and Design, majored in Interaction Design.

As function became the king of interaction design, areas like error feedback design received less attention. It started as a thesis topic and later on became a design theme I decided to expand more on in my day-to-day practice. I am also building a website with useful content including guidelines for error feedback design solutions, a methodology for applying them, and inspirations.

This topic marked the beginning of my career as an interaction designer; now I want to share it and inspire others.

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