We have a food delivery app that loads a list of restaurants.
If the list fails to load, instead of an error alert, we have an integrated error message displayed in place of the list. My worry is voice over users will not be aware that an error has occurred.
I have 2 ideas to fix this
First idea was to automatically move the focus to the error view in the list. However I have heard that moving the focus can be annoying.
Second idea is to just display an alert with retry and cancel buttons if voice over is enabled.
What is the best way to handle errors?
Comments
Error
No, don't move the focus at any time without a really good reason to do so. You could either display an alert box as you described or just show a message that no results were found in the place the results would be if there were results.
I would agree — as a general
I would agree — as a general UI design principle, not just for VoiceOver — that putting the error message in the list where the content would have appeared is a good approach. But the following questions are useful to ask:
<ul><li>How can the user try again after the error? (a button by the error message? pull to refresh? Does the message communicate this clearly?)</li>
<li>If there was already usable content in the list, and the error is happening when trying to update, should the error message replace the previous content? (Typically not, because that’s just a roadblock)</li>
<li>Where in or around the list should the error be displayed? How will a VoiceOver user discover it when looking for content? (if using pull to refresh, typically the error is placed at the top of the list where the pull to refresh UI was)</li>
</ul>
How I deal with loading errors
Not sure about other people here, but when I'm in an app and see a place on the screen for a list which just either says "Loading" or "In progress", I'll periodically look in that area for changes, either any error messages or the actual content being loaded. At that point it's OK if said error isn't a full-screen dialog box because I was aware that something is taking longer than usual.
Perhaps you could do what Facebook is doing in their apps. If something isn't loaded, they don't use full-screen errors, but they have VoiceOver speak a message if an error appears (they don't move the focus when this happens)