Summary: The phrase “The given text appears to be an error message and does not contain a story that can be extracted and rewritten…” might seem trivial or merely technical. But when unpacked, this JSON-based message reveals a recurring pattern in how we think about digital communication, user expectations, and automated responses. It’s not just about insufficient balance—it’s about failed expectations, friction in user interactions, and the silent assumptions embedded in how we design digital systems. Let’s dissect this message not as a glitch, but as a window into user psychology and system behavior.
What Are We Really Looking At?
Here’s the actual text:
{
"error": {
"name": "InsufficientBalanceError",
"message": "Your balance is too low. Please recharge your account and try again."
}
}
On the surface, this is just a JSON object. To a developer, the contents are routine. But to a user who hits this wall, this message is jarring. It interrupts a flow, stops momentum, and transforms a task into a problem. And if you’re in marketing, support, UX design, or product leadership, your job is to think beyond code and address what this really means: a broken promise in the user’s journey.
There’s No Story to Rewrite—But There Is One Being Told
A machine can say, “No.” A user hears more than that. They hear rejection. They hear delay. And most of all, they feel friction. This is where systems mislead by omission. The system has declined a request, yes—but it has also skipped the human part: empathy, helpfulness, guidance.
And that sentence at the top, declaring there’s “no story to extract or rewrite,” is true technically but misleading practically. Because there is always a story. It just isn’t in the text. It’s in the reaction to it. What does the user do after seeing that? Abandon their task? Recharge immediately? Contact support with frustration? Each of those is a story waiting to unfold—and market teams need to anticipate them ahead of time.
The Message is Functional—But Not Useful
Let’s call out the problem squarely: what you have here is a machine-to-developer error that accidentally gets exposed to users. The tone, logic, and context all assume the person reading it knows what a JSON object is and what to do next. That’s a failure in user communication.
Notice the phrase: Your balance is too low. It contains no number, no link to recharge, no prompt, no timeout info, no clarification on whether a retry will work. That omission costs you real engagement and trust. A frustrated user is one short click away from switching to a competitor who explains things better. So who’s asking for a story here, and why are we saying one doesn’t exist?
User Friction Hides in Plain Sight
This kind of error message cannot be brushed off as “not a story”. It is a micro-point of friction. And when these pile up—silent, untracked, unaudited—you end up with churn no analytics tool will ever fully explain.
The error message is a pivot point. Either it acts as a bridge (“here’s how to fix it, we’re with you”) or a wall (“you broke something, go fix it”). Most systems settle for the wall. Few teams have the guts to ask: what does this moment feel like for our user? What word choices build trust instead of apathy?
How You Fix It—Without Splitting the Difference
Let’s take Chris Voss’s negotiation perspective. This error is the moment where the system says “No.” But ‘No’ isn’t the end; it’s the beginning. It invites a follow-up: “How can I fix this?” That’s your negotiation moment. You’ve got the user’s attention—use it wisely.
- Mirror the pain. Reflect their frustration: “You tried to continue, but your balance stopped you.”
- Label the emotion. “That’s frustrating—we get it.”
- Use calibrated questions. “Would you like to recharge now or set a reminder?”
- Stay silent if needed. Just show a clean screen and a big button. Don’t flood with data or diagnostics.
And the messaging should never isolate the user as the problem. It’s not just “your balance is too low.” It’s: “To continue, you need a balance update. Want help with that now?” Because the second version opens a path. That’s not a story—but it invites one.
Stop Designing Messages for Machines
The root cause of these robotic error messages is a cultural one inside tech teams. We design for the event, not the experience. We write for the debugger, not the human. And as a result, we kill marketing trust at scale.
No one talks about these friction zones at QBRs, but everyone feels them on support calls and negative app reviews. If you believe in brand consistency and user trust, you must sweep these corners daily. Because problems like these compound quietly—the same way interest or decay does. Design the system to support failure with dignity.
From JSON Errors to Brand Moments
What would it take for your next JSON “InsufficientBalanceError” to be part of your brand narrative? Not much. Just intention. Just care. Just a willingness to ask: What is this system really saying? And what should the user feel as they read it?
Because let’s be honest: there’s always a story. The only question is whether you wrote it with purpose or let a blind system write it for you.
#UserExperience #ErrorMessagesThatBuildTrust #FrictionKillsConversions #UXCommunication #MarketingThroughSupport #IEEOMarketing
Featured Image courtesy of Unsplash and Frederic Köberl (VV5w_PAchIk)
