Exception Handling in Desktop Application
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Where can I find some online guidance regarding the creating the ultimate user experience, with regards to exception handling? Jeff Atwood's catch-all solution[^] is very attractive, but I'd like to read up on the finer points, in a design aspect, of handling those unpleasant little situations where the user gets told something bad.
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Where can I find some online guidance regarding the creating the ultimate user experience, with regards to exception handling? Jeff Atwood's catch-all solution[^] is very attractive, but I'd like to read up on the finer points, in a design aspect, of handling those unpleasant little situations where the user gets told something bad.
My [self-serving] opinion is: just tell the users that a problem occurred but that tech support (or whoever) has already been notified. Then when you get the notification, call the user. there is no point in telling the user that "someclass encountered a null blah blah exception in method whatever(arg,arg,arg,arg) at line 42075 of module someclass.cs": in general they have no context to understand what it means, they cannot do anything about it, and frankly it scares quite a few of them. telling them instead "oops, my bad" and then following up in a timely fashion [i.e. before they forget what they were doing] is far better - it makes you look like you're on top of things, and it gives the user a warm fuzzy about the application and your commitment to supporting it again, this is just my [self-serving] opinion. ;)
Best regards, Steven A. Lowe CEO, Innovator LLC www.nov8r.com