If something goes wrong with your product, it’s essential that the user know how to make things better, and soon. This is very true with websites. If I can’t figure out how to navigate, I leave. If something takes too long to load, I leave. Web users are impatient.

This afternoon I was trying to watch video over at cnn.com - and this particularly unhelpful error message popped up (click for a full view). The video player is a grey box and simply says, “General Error.” Well, at least I know it isn’t something specific.

Of course, if CNN were really to blame, I would just head over and watch the video at (gasp!) Fox. Instead, I copied and pasted the URL, left Firefox and opened (gasp!) Internet Explorer, where it worked just fine.

Actually, CNN is to blame. Sites need to be tested in all (major) browsers. Users who run into problems need to get the information they need to find a solution to that problem. I bet the solution to my problem was something simple, such as grabbing the latest version of the Flash player.