{"id":"mkt-x-app-error-messages-voice","track":"marketing","audience":"product-managers","category":"social-content","technique":"tone","title":"Rewrite app messages so they help instead of blame","free":false,"task":"You're the PM for Pocketpal, a budgeting app, and the app's messages sound robotic. Rewrite the 4 messages as exactly 4 numbered lines, each under 14 words, each saying what to do next. Follow the voice guide in your task: never blame the user (no \"you failed\", \"invalid\" or \"error\"), no \"oops\" or \"uh-oh\", and no exclamation points. Plain text, only the list.","materialLabel":"Current messages (attached to your prompt automatically)","material":"POCKETPAL - message rewrite list (from the support team, Nov)\n\n1. Login screen: \"ERROR 401: Invalid credentials. Authentication failed.\"\n   What's going on: wrong email or password. User can try again or reset password.\n\n2. Bank connection: \"Sync failure. Your bank connection has failed.\"\n   What's going on: the bank's connection timed out. Usually fixes itself; user can tap Retry. If it keeps failing, reconnect the bank in Settings > Accounts.\n\n3. Budget form: \"Invalid input. Amount field error.\"\n   What's going on: user typed letters or left it blank. Needs a number like 250.\n\n4. Upload receipt: \"File rejected. Unsupported format.\"\n   What's going on: we accept JPG, PNG or PDF, up to 10 MB.\n\nSupport team notes:\n- Tickets say users feel scolded by message 3.\n- The designers' first draft used \"Oops!\" and \"Uh-oh!\" everywhere. The head of product hated it.\n- Messages have to fit on one line on a small phone.","rules":[{"type":"numberedItems","count":4},{"type":"plainText"}],"mistakes":[{"title":"Saying \"make these friendlier\"","why":"The AI adds \"Oops!\" and exclamation points, which the team already rejected.","fix":"Add: \"No oops, no uh-oh, no exclamation points.\"","checks":["r2"]},{"title":"Keeping the blame words","why":"The AI softens tone but keeps \"invalid\" and \"failed\".","fix":"Add: \"Never use error, invalid, failed or rejected.\"","checks":["r1"]},{"title":"Not saying what to do","why":"The AI explains the problem without the next step.","fix":"Add: \"Each message says what to do next.\"","checks":["r0"]},{"title":"Getting a table with notes","why":"The AI shows before/after with bold labels and rationale.","fix":"Add: \"Exactly 4 numbered lines, plain text, no notes.\"","checks":["numberedItems","plainText"]}],"promptHints":[{"label":"Says how many","patterns":["\\b(4|four)\\b.{0,20}(messages|lines)","exactly \\d+"]},{"label":"Asks for the next step","patterns":["what to do","next step","action"]},{"label":"Bans blame words","patterns":["invalid","error","fail","blame"]},{"label":"Rules out oops and exclamation points","patterns":["oops","exclamation","uh-oh"]},{"label":"Asks for only the list","patterns":["only the (numbered )?list","no (intro|notes|explanation)","nothing else","plain text"]}],"hint":"\"Friendlier\" means something different to the AI than to your team. List the words that sound like blame, the cheerful words you don't want, and ask for the next step.","rubricLabels":["Each of the 4 rewritten messages is under 14 words and tells the user what to do next (try again or reset password; tap Retry or reconnect in Settings > Accounts; enter a number like 250; use a JPG, PNG or PDF under 10 MB)","No message uses error, invalid, failed, failure, rejected or 'you failed', and none blames the user","No message uses oops, uh-oh or an exclamation point, and the reply is only the 4 numbered messages with no intro, labels or notes"]}