I agree... especially with the comment about terse and unclear error messages. I recently got lured into the customer-facing side of things, and nothing annoys me (or our new users) than a message like "Incorrect syntax" when I used a unsupported symbol for my password.
First, be clear with your design and instructions. In my hasty password example - "Please create your password (6 or more characters, letters and numbers only)"
Then - if the user messes up, explain a bit... "Whoops, please only use letters and numbers"
First, be clear with your design and instructions. In my hasty password example - "Please create your password (6 or more characters, letters and numbers only)"
Then - if the user messes up, explain a bit... "Whoops, please only use letters and numbers"
So, so much nicer. :)
</rant>