Designed for Use, 2nd Edition

Say Less

Since people don’t read, it’s best to avoid bothering them with text whenever possible.

For example, don’t warn people when they are about to do something destructive. Instead, allow them to undo their change.

Similarly, if an error occurs and you have a way to make your product recover on its own without telling the user, do it. If the user has entered a website address that is truncated but your website receives enough information to identify the page he’s looking for, simply forward him to that page. If your application tries to connect to a server but the connection times out, make the application try again before telling the user there’s something wrong. Notify the user only if your product really can’t fix the problem on its own. ...