Follow UI alert guidelines¶

General alert guidelines¶

When writing alerts, follow these rules:

• Be courteous and do not blame the user
• Use present tense to describe conditions that currently exist, or use past tense to describe a specific event that occurred in the past
• Keep sentences short but helpful
• Adhere to the guidelines in the Writing style section

Alert structure for new danger (error) conditions¶

A danger alert, or error message, should help the user resolve the problem quickly so that they can continue making progress. Do not include an error if you can avoid publishing the alert by enhancing the code.

1. State the problem clearly and briefly.
2. If appropriate, explain why the user encountered the error.
3. If possible, tell the user how to fix the problem. If further information is needed, consider whether the documentation should be enhanced.

Alert examples¶

Success

• Successfully created key pair %(name)s.
• Image successfully updated.

Info

• Updating volume snapshot “%s”
• Creating volume “%s”

Warning

• Policy check failed.
• Insufficient privilege level exists to view user information.

Danger

• Unable to create the volume.
• Unable to retrieve the image.