Error message - UX writing

This error was created at the request of the development team, who realized just before launch that customers might have issues exporting their content calendars. The scenario would be resolved for the next iteration.

Because users can still download, it’s framed as a warning with a yellow color, rather than red for a blocking error. I updated the heading to remove any suggestion that the user is to blame. Hootsuite’s error guidelines say we should acknowledge when something is our fault, so in these cases I explicitly used “we.”

I asked the developers if we could get any more specific. There were many reasons the error might occur, but one specifically was if the date range was too long. I clarified that the file could be missing info, which is why downloading could still be of value for the user, and added another action they could take to get around the error, which is to try a shorter date range. I also removed the word ‘report’ because it wasn’t used anywhere else in the feature’s UI, and just stuck with ‘export.’

If I could do this again I would shorten this message further. The file can be downloaded two ways (CTA and the email link), but they don’t both need to be mentioned here.