I was registering online for an event this week using a credit card and experienced a usability hiccup on the organization’s web site that I found noteworthy. As I was completing the final steps of the registration online, I clicked submit and instead of being greeted by a confirmation screen, I received an intimidating red error message that said “Your credit card has been declined.” Ouch! No one likes to hear that. However, I knew the card was fine so I tried to think of other reasons for the error. Then I realized that the billing address I had entered was not the one that was associated with the card. I edited my registration and lo and behold, the registration was completed successfully.

While I was able to figure out what the problem was, others might not be so fortunate. How many other customers decided to give up after the first “Declined” message and abandon the registration process? This anecdote illustrates the importance of descriptive error messages. In this particular case, a better error message might be something like:

“There was a problem with your credit card. It was declined by the processor which could be due to a number of things. Some possible causes include insufficient funds, or perhaps the billing address you entered is not the address associated with this credit card. You may want to double-check the billing address you entered. If you continue to have trouble, please call us at 800.555.1212.”

This error message is much more useful that the first one because it gives the customer some useful troubleshooting information as well as a phone number to call as a last resort for further help. It also does not accuse the customer of having a bad credit card, but rather presents some possible scenarios and does not make assumptions, thus keeping the transaction neutral. The scenario above is one example, but user-friendly error messages are important any time your site asks for user data. This same principal can be applied to social networking sites, online forums, or even simple contact forms.

Is your web site inadvertently turning away good customers by displaying cold, unfriendly error messages? Take a look and see if some improvements can be made. A few small changes can turn lost sales into loyal customers.