| Those who can, do. Those who can’t put up error messages |
When it comes to using applications, users feel most comfortable when they think everything is rolling along smoothly. Try not to upset them; if your application can fix itself, do it quietly - there’s often no reason to tell the user.
We know it can be pretty disappointing when you’ve just done something really cool to fix your application and make the user’s life better, but you can’t even tell them about it! Unfortunately some of the best features (like performance, and resilience) are that much better when they work so smoothly the user doesn’t even notice.
Of course, if something has gone wrong, it doesn’t mean that you should keep it entirely to yourself. System administrators need to know what’s going on with applications in their charge. The errors your application is silently fixing may be indicators of other problems, like a failing hard drive, a problematic network, or a database in need of repair etc. Make sure you log your errors so that administrators can know what’s happening. You should follow the normal rules for error logging, and make sure that error log messages are easy to understand, without the need to decode error ID numbers or other cryptic information. Be sure to let the administrator know the error was automatically fixed.