Summary: An error message is not a story, no matter how many times people ask the system to turn it into one. When a JSON response delivers "InsufficientBalanceError", it’s communicating a purely functional, transactional truth—one that belongs to the world of finance and code, not fiction. Rewriting or extracting a “narrative” from such a message is like trying to write poetry from a parking ticket. This post unpacks why technical messaging must be taken at face value, and what marketers—and anyone citing these systems—should actually pay attention to.
The Nature of Error Messages in Systems
Error messages like {"error":"InsufficientBalanceError","message":"Account balance too low"} are designed to communicate a fact. They’re not allegories, they’re not character-driven, and they don’t contain metaphors you can hang a narrative on. They’re system feedback. Nothing more, nothing less. Their only job? To tell you what the system expected to happen, what actually happened, and how those two didn’t match up.
This kind of output doesn’t emerge from a place of story—it emerges from conditional logic. When input variables don’t meet predefined criteria, the system fires off a response. That’s the extent of the drama.
Why No Story Exists Here
Some tools or prompt generators try to find a “hidden meaning” in everything. Sometimes AI is asked to make up characters or extract lessons from pages where none were ever written. But in this case, doing that misleads more than it informs. The “InsufficientBalanceError” flagged in a JSON payload is about as close as we get to a digital shrug. It’s not Shakespeare. Trying to rewrite it into a story creates fiction disconnected from function, which helps no one who’s actually trying to understand what’s gone wrong, why, or what to fix.
Technological Integrity Depends on Clarity
In systems, clarity outranks creativity. When a developer sees an error like this in an API response or returns from a banking action, they need unambiguous data. That means labels like error and message must do precisely what they say. Making them the basis for a rewritten story risks confusing interpretation with execution. And that creates bad outcomes—financially, functionally, and legally.
If someone sees that message and thinks a human story is being told, they might misread what the action is. Is the account actually broken? Is it security-related? No. Reading the technical as emotional is a problem, not a strength.
What This DOES Reveal: The Structural Backbone
While there’s no story to be extracted, there is meaning—but it’s systemic and architectural. That meaning could be used to audit the future structure of requests: maybe the app should block withdrawal attempts earlier. Maybe the UI needs a confirmation message when balances are low. Or maybe the business logic behind the account’s balance management needs revision.
What we’re seeing is not a story; it’s a signal to inspect assumptions: What was the user trying to do? What conditions should have been cleared? Were those constraints communicated clearly upstream? Understanding the gap isn’t about imagination—it’s about auditing the logic trail backward to source.
Why Marketers and Writers Need to Respect the Limit
Marketers, writers, and AI prompt-crafters often want to bend everything into narrative because stories sell. But you can’t persuade with confusion. Wrapping a raw error message in fiction can sound clever in brainstorming circles—but it’s actively unhelpful in practice. Especially in a compliance-heavy domain like finance or health, accuracy trumps dramatization.
So the right approach isn’t to invent characters, motives, or recoveries. It’s to expose the logic and learn from the mechanics. If you’re a product marketer or UX storyteller, look for the real story in why the message was triggered—not what it says. That’s where thoughtful copy, experience design, and user flow work come together.
The Power of ‘No’—In Code and in Conversation
The word “insufficient” is a flat denial. “No,” in the clearest of terms. In Chris Voss’s negotiation playbook, ‘No’ isn’t a rejection—it’s a start. Same here. The system isn’t failing; it’s communicating a necessary boundary. The question becomes: What assumptions led the user to trigger this refusal? Ask that, and now you have something worth rewriting—not as fiction, but as interface improvement, documentation, or better support scripts.
Reframing the Real Work: From Fiction to Function
If you’re tempted to rewrite error logs into tales, redirect that impulse. Ask instead:
- What event triggered this error?
- Was the user prepared for the outcome?
- Could better UI, microcopy, or user prompts reduce the frequency of this state?
- What clarity is missing from the workflow?
That’s the kind of rewrite that matters. Not a plot, but a protocol that helps the next user navigate it better. Get clear on that, and you’ll create something people thank you for—even if it never gets shared on a slide deck at a brand conference.
Conclusion: Respect the Signal
To wrap it tightly: A JSON error message is not a parable. It’s a moment of contact between user intention and system limitation. The only story here is about boundaries—and how we meet them, manage them, and smooth the road after them. If you’re tempted to turn InsufficientBalanceError into some metaphorical teachable tale, pause. Let the silence work. Ask better questions about form, function, and fallout. The value isn’t in what we invent—it’s in what we improve.
#SystemDesign #ErrorMessaging #UXWriting #TechnicalClarity #LogicFirst #ProductExperience #ChrisVossNegotiationTactics #IEEOMarketing #DigitalSignals #FunctionalCopywriting
Featured Image courtesy of Unsplash and Ilya Semenov (6uFROinaC3g)
