Your success message is the one nobody reviews
Robert Nnamani left a comment under my last piece with a better example than anything in the post itself, and I have been carrying it around for a day. He spent a week trusting an SES 200 OK . 200 means accepted , not delivered . The mail died downstream and no log said so. Then the line that made me put my coffee down: the expensive part was not the lost emails, it was the weeks he spent…
Your success message often goes unnoticed and unreviewed, unlike the errors that are immediately read by annoyed users. When an error occurs, such as "Not found," it clearly indicates the problem and offers a solution. However, a success message like "Your message has been sent" is rarely read and usually contains a guess. It describes the server's action but leaves the user's situation unaddressed.
Both errors and successes fail to state the user's state, but errors do so by omission while successes do so by assertion, which is even worse because it blinds the user. The best way to check if your system is working correctly is to read a sentence without context and determine what happened and what to do next. "Not found" and "Accepted for delivery" are clear, while "200 OK" and "Sent" leave you uncertain.
A success message may seem harmless, but it can lead to a blind system if not properly tested. The only reliable enforcement is a test that pins the success message, ensuring it remains accurate and useful.
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