Reddit provides an example of poor usability during the site submission form. They try to make fun of users’ errors. If the user enters a wrong CAPTCHA the website displays a "your letters stink" message.
"websites should have meaningful and explanatory error messages…"
Even worse, the instructions of what to do with that weird image (many users don’t know what a CAPTCHA is) were inside the "human?" field, so after entering something there the instructions disappear.
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Error messages are not something users like seeing. Usually they are frustrating, so websites should have meaningful and explanatory error messages, they should tell users how to resolve the problem. Remember that if your users are not allow to finish a process, you might be loosing money.
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Remember that after an error users usually want an explanatory message that helps them reach their goal (e.g. for example buying something at your site!)
