I was signing up for the ThoughtWorks Studio forum today and received this wonderful/insightful error. There has been tons of discussion around the interblogs about what to do with errors and how to notify the end user. Normally these posts end with commentary that says something like this:

“If a user gets an error, let the know through the UI. Let them know what they did wrong, or how they can help alleviate the situation. If all hell broke loose, just let them know something went wrong and give them an email or phone number to contact – or even better… let them contact you from the site. Note: However, this can get overwhelming if you site is very heavy on traffic.”

From the screen shot below, it looks like they had an “All hell breaks loose” type of error.

[image got lost in crash]

My Advice?

Knowing that ThoughtWorks Discussion runs on Beast I assume there would be a way to edit the default error page. I advise to at least give the user a message stating that there was an error (such as they have done) and give them a way to contact support (which has not been done). That way, the users can feel comforted that they’ve done their part in notifying whom-ever needs to be notified to get the problem rectified.

Seeing that I was activating my account when I got this error … I think its rather high priority for them to get it fixed. I still cannot log into my account, but I have sent an email to their support (after digging around on the site for a bit). I don’t know about you but if my app throws on account activation, I HAD BETTER KNOW ABOUT IT FAST. Because otherwise, I’m losing users.

Losing Users == Losing Money == FAIL

… and dat my friend, is no bueno. :)