Contingency Design

September 19, 2002 | 0 Comments

I decided I need to make a custom 404 page for this site, as I have some flash files that point to things in pixel heaven, so I decided to do a little research on contingency design. You know - design for when things go wrong. For this site, that would pretty much be limited to simple error pages, but depending on the type of site you have this could mean many things. If you’ve ever encountered an error filling out a form and then have to go back and start from the beginning again you’ve experienced faulty contingency design.

Over at 37 signals they have some really great information on contingency design. They’ve just put out a white paper and they produce a nifty little site all about this stuf - Design Not Found.

Here they talk about what different sites have done - and what has worked and not worked. Teaching by example, I love that.

I also stumbled across the 404 Research Lab. Here there is more information, specific to 404 errors for the most part. They do have a great 404 gallery and basic information on what your 404 pages might look like and what information they might convey.

Filed under: IA and Usability