Summary: The raw structure of machine responses—particularly those encoded in JSON—often confuses people expecting rich human language or storytelling. When faced with a JSON error message related to an insufficient account balance, some believe there must be a story hidden in the data. That assumption reflects a misunderstanding of what such responses do, how they function, and why they are useful. This blog post breaks down what these messages actually contain, what they don’t, and why trying to extract narrative meaning from structured data misses the point.
What JSON Error Responses Are Designed to Do
A JSON response exists for one reason: machine readability. When a server returns a message in JSON format, it’s talking to another machine, not a human being. It’s a standardized structure—simple enough for computers to interpret consistently and precise enough to tell systems what went wrong so they can react accordingly. Human drama doesn't live here. There’s no plot, no characters, and no stakes beyond informing the system or developer how it failed to perform the requested operation.
The Anatomy of the Message
Let’s examine what’s usually in a JSON error related to an insufficient balance:
{
"code": "ERR_402",
"name": "INSUFFICIENT_BALANCE",
"status": 402,
"message": "The operation could not be completed because your account has insufficient funds.",
"readable_message": "Please check your account balance and try again."
}
Every piece of this serves a practical function:
- code: This is often used for logging or debugging to instantly categorize the error.
- name: A short machine-readable tag describing what type of error occurred.
- status: A numerical HTTP status code indicating the nature of the error. “402” means “Payment Required.”
- message: The internal description, likely used for systems or developers.
- readable_message: A friendly explanation of the problem, aimed at end-users but still stripped of emotion.
There’s zero narrative. No villain drained the account. No hero is about to swoop in with funding. Just procedural honesty, plain and utilitarian.
Why There’s No Story to Rewrite
The key point? This message wasn’t created to be rewritten. It performs an alert function—think of it like a smoke alarm. A smoke alarm’s job isn’t to tell you how the fire started. It just screams. Trying to extract a story from an error message is like asking the smoke alarm to recite a bedtime story. It won't—and it shouldn't.
Narratives require emotional stakes, motives, and transformations. JSON errors aren’t about that. They supply the “what,” not the “why” or “how.” You might feel frustrated seeing this error on your app screen, but the code doesn’t feel anything back. Its structure is deliberate: consistent, neutral, and rapid to interpret for systems needing to respond immediately—with retries, alerts, or improved UX messaging.
Useful, but Not Literary
If anything, the lesson here is that not every piece of language output is a story—or should be. People looking for metaphor or meaning everywhere often tie themselves in interpretive knots. Let the JSON be boring. That’s its job. You wouldn't expect a financial building's structural blueprint to inspire poetry—and likewise, there's nothing wrong with code just being code.
Trying to spin narratives from JSON misses the bigger opportunity: to ensure your human-facing messaging is crafted separately and with intent. Align your frontend’s UX with empathy and understanding, but don’t expect the backend syntax to carry emotional weight. That’s a misallocation of effort and a misunderstanding of purpose.
Marketing Takeaway: Clarity > Creativity, When It Comes to System Failures
If you’re designing software, systems, or services where users may run into limits—like insufficient balances—then storytelling happens elsewhere. The JSON response only notifies. The real messaging moment lives in your front-end display, push notification, SMS, or email escalation.
Here you can apply persuasion. Understand that the user may feel embarrassed, frustrated, or stuck. Use Blair Warren’s lens: Confirm the suspicion ("They always stop me when I'm about to buy something important"), encourage their dream ("You deserve a better account experience"), acknowledge past letdowns ("You're not the first to hit this limit"), and show them forward steps without shame or false cheerleading.
But keep the error message itself true to form: blunt, technical, and stable. It’s okay if it’s boring. In fact, it should be.
#ErrorHandling #UXDesign #DeveloperTools #ClarityMatters #JSONMessaging #TechnicalCommunication #UserExperience #InsufficientBalance
Featured Image courtesy of Unsplash and Patrick Martin (UMlT0bviaek)