When Words Fail in the Moments that Matter

Earlier this week, I was sitting with a family member in a doctor’s office. We were anxiously awaiting the results of a medical scan. These results had the potential to shape the next several chapters of our lives. Was this the start of a cancer journey?

The doctor pulled up the scan results. Or rather... he tried to. He clicked, waited, clicked again. The software lagged, froze, and finally, after several false starts, he managed to locate the precise frame of imaging he wanted to explain.

“This mass here…” he began.

And then the screen went black.

Up popped the dreaded message:

Aw, Snap! Something went wrong.

All three of us physically recoiled. My family member’s hand gripped mine. The doctor flushed red.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “This happens a lot, actually. These imaging records are huge and sometimes the software gives out. I really don’t think the person who wrote this was trying to be insensitive.”

He restarted the process, dug back into the record, and finally delivered the news: it wasn’t cancer. Nothing to worry about. Relief flooded the room. Tears. Gratitude.

Days later, however, I keep replaying that “Aw, Snap!” moment in my mind. What a complete and total failure of content design.

I know exactly what happened. The person behind that message was likely inspired by Chrome’s playful “Aw, Snap!” error. Google’s cool, right? Add some personality, lighten the mood, be clever.

Except, when you’re dealing with medical imaging software — moments that are literally life and death — “clever” is the worst possible choice.

This is why content design matters.

Content design (sometimes called UX writing) is the part of design that deals specifically with the words on the screen. In my team, our Content Designers write every word that shows up inside our software, from navigation labels to form field pre-fills to error messages. Their work is essential, because often the replacement of a single word can mean the difference between clarity and confusion, trust or distrust.

Here are three principles of good content design that this moment brought to life:

1. You are not your user.

It’s tempting to use “inside baseball” terms or clever phrasing that make sense to your team. But users aren’t insiders. They’re people with their own context, knowledge, and stress levels. Especially in high-stakes settings, plain language wins. Test your assumptions through usability studies and A/B testing before assuming people will “get it.”

2. Context is everything.

The right words in one product can be devastatingly wrong in another. “Aw, Snap!” might feel breezy in a browser window. But in a doctor's office, it lands as flippant and cruel. Good content design considers not just the screen, but the setting, the stakes, and the emotional state of the person reading.

3. Clarity builds trust.

When things go wrong, users need to know what happened and what to do next. “Aw, Snap!” gives neither. Instead, it leaves people hanging at the exact moment they’re most vulnerable. A clear, respectful message could have maintained trust, even in failure: “The image didn’t load. Please refresh or try again.”

That day ended with good news and a little more hope for tomorrow. But I can’t stop thinking about the way the wrong words showed up at the wrong time.

👉 What’s the most inappropriate error message you’ve ever seen, and what did it make you feel in that moment?