Defensive Design for the Web: How to Improve Error Messages, Help, Forms, and Other Crisis Points

Defensive Design for the Web is a 2004 guide from 37signals, written by Matthew Linderman and Jason Fried, about handling the moments when websites go wrong. The authors show how to prevent and recover from common problems, such as confusing error messages, broken links, failed searches and frustrating forms. Using dozens of before-and-after examples from real sites, they offer guidelines for designing pages that help people get back on track instead of giving up.