Match the weight of the feedback to how much it matters, and never stay silent on failure.
| Situation | Feedback |
|---|---|
| A control changed state | The control itself: a switch, a selection, a pressed button |
| Work finished | A toast: “Document saved” |
| Something reversible happened | A toast with Undo |
| A condition lasts while people work | An inline message, such as offline |
| A field is wrong | An error under the field |
| Something critical needs a decision | An alert, rarely (R13) |
Best practices
- Never report success that didn’t happen, and never stay silent on failure.
- Errors say what happened, why if it helps, and what to do next, in plain words.
- Background work that fails tells people where to retry.