Achieving a User Friendly Error Message Design: Understanding the Mindset and Preferences of Turkish Software Developers

This study investigates the preferences of software developers concerning the design of error messages and required fields in web forms and explores the factors affecting these preferences. A total of 73 software developers participated in this study and data was collected through a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. According to the results of the study, for the error message design, the developers tended to provide solutions they considered useful not only for users but also for themselves. Therefore, the majority of the software developers chose to embed error codes in error messages; however, they stated that it was not appropriate to display the error code as the main element of the message. Furthermore, it was seen that the error message preferences of software developers were significantly influenced by the duration of developers' participation in the project, the stage at which they joined the project and the number of other experienced developers.