I’ve recently been reading ‘Defensive Design for the Web‘ from 37Signals. The book primarily discusses how to improve the user experience in the case something goes wrong or there is a malfunction. That is why I put together a nice error handling page for simplifive.
Here’s a good example of defensive design in the real world from my water heater:
Error handling on a website is essential to the user experience. For example, a simple 404 page can do wonders: 1) save a user from leaving your site 2) help you in reporting the problem 3) redirect users to ‘sticky’ sections of your site. You may think you don’t need a 404 handler because your such a great web developer. Well, get off your horse and check your log files. Then you will come to realize that you may as well.
Related posts:
- User Experience Design I actually wasn’t looking for what I found in this...
- design trends and their demise Here is an interesting article about design trends that have...
- Left and Right Design The idea of left and right design came to me...
- Intuitive design Dan Russell has an excellent post on one of my...
- The UnSurprising Truth About Good Design I just read an article I found through The Web...
