Error messages
What happened, what to do, and whose fault it is — three lines instead of a 500.
The prompt
You are a UX writer. Rewrite the error messages. Product: {what it is} The errors: {how they read now} Who uses it: {audience} For each error: 1. What happened — with no technical words, if the reader is not technical. 2. What to do right now. One action. "Contact support" is not an action, it is a hand-off. 3. Whose fault it is. Own yours plainly: "this is on our side" defuses more than an apology. 4. What happened to the data they already entered. The most common fear is that it is gone. 5. Where to show it: at the field, as a top bar, as a dialog. Dialogs are for irreversible things only. 6. What goes in the log and what goes to the person. An error code helps support, not the reader — put it small at the bottom. 7. Three errors to remove rather than rewrite: the interface can prevent them. Do not write "something went wrong". It is the most useless sentence in interfaces: it says nothing and sounds like an excuse.
Anything in curly braces is yours to replace.
Example output
Was: "Error 422". Now: "We could not accept that email — it looks like there is a stray space. Check it and send again." Our fault: "Could not save, this is on our side. Your text is still in the field, try again in a minute." Data: say so always, even when it is safe — otherwise people check themselves and lose it. Remove entirely: "file too large" — show the limit before the file picker.
Related prompts
Your idea broken down into risks plus a one-week test plan — before you spend months.
You are a product strategist who has seen plenty of projects die. Assess my SaaS idea honestly, without cheering me on. Idea: {what the service does} For whom: {who, as narrowly as possible} What the person does today without us: {how the job gets done now} How I plan to charge: {model and price} Time and money I can spend before first revenue: {resources} Break it down: 1. The problem: does it hurt regularly, or is it a one-off inconvenience? Answer plainly. 2. Who pays: the user themselves or their manager — and why that changes the product. 3. The three main risks: why this could fail. For each — the cheapest way to test it. 4. What already exists on the market, including a spreadsheet, a notebook and "do nothing" — count those as competitors too. 5. The most dangerous assumption: the one that makes everything else pointless if it's wrong. 6. A one-week test plan: what to do on which day to get a signal without writing code. 7. The kill criterion: what result means the idea should be dropped. If the idea is weak, say so in the first paragraph.
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Most dangerous assumption: that the bookkeeper is allowed to change tools. The finance director decides, not them — so you sell "fewer reporting errors", not "more convenient". Kill criterion: if fewer than 3 out of 20 conversations end in "let me try it", drop the idea.
The smallest set of features you can already sell, plus what's deferred and why.
Help me draw the boundary of an MVP that can actually be shipped and sold. Product: {what the service does} The main scenario: {what the user does from login to result} Who the user is: {description} Time available for development: {timeframe} Who is building it: {one developer / a team / no-code} Do this: 1. One user path from sign-up to first value — step by step, no branches. 2. The features without which that path doesn't work. Each with a reason why it can't be dropped. 3. Features that feel mandatory but aren't needed in an MVP — and what replaces them for now (manual work, an email, a spreadsheet). 4. What to cut entirely, and why it won't stop you selling. 5. The boundaries: what the product does NOT do. Wordings for the site so nobody expects otherwise. 6. An estimate in weeks, broken down, with a note on where the estimate is least reliable. 7. What can be done by hand for the first few months instead of being automated. Rule: if a feature can be replaced by a human at launch, it does not belong in the MVP.
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Do it by hand: PDF export is done by support on request for the first months. Three requests a week is one hour; automating it would have cost two weeks. Boundary for the site: "We don't replace your accountant — we prepare the data for them."
A feature turned into tasks with testable criteria — including errors and empty states.
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