When Life Gives You Lemons, Write Better Error Messages

Developers love writing errors like "Something went wrong." Users love reading them. Spoiler: no, they don't. In the Wix UX blog, they break down how to turn a standard "Oops" into a helpful message that doesn't make you want to screenshot it with swear words.

Why it matters Every time a user sees an abstract error, their brain paints a picture of "everything is broken forever." A good message should:

• Explain what went wrong (without technical jargon).
• Suggest what to do next.
• Leave the feeling that you care, not just throw an exception.

Real-life examples Instead of "Error 500" write "Couldn't load data. Try refreshing the page or come back in a few minutes." Instead of "Invalid input" — "The email field must contain @, otherwise the letter won't arrive." Sounds like magic? No, just empathy.

Mocking typical errors Remember those messages written by juniors "just for debug" and left in? "Oops, something broke (but we don't know what)." Or the classic "Error: null" — thanks, captain. A good error is like a good commit: clear why and what to do.

METABYTE studio comment We at METABYTE also once wrote "Error 42" hoping the user is a psychic. Now we know: a good error is worth a thousand support tickets. Even if everything is on fire inside, the user should only see a faint smoke.