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I am currently working on a diagnostics report that will output a green string of text if the test passed and a red string of text if it failed.

However, the user is only ever going to be running this test as either a check or to see what has failed. Therefore I am inquiring if it is a user experience principle to make the failure string more apparent to the user (through something subtle like making it bold). A difference in color already communicates a difference between the results but should I go further?

Here is what the strings look like on their web page:

enter image description here

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Your current design is obvious enough. Your audience will know what the icons/colour difference mean so anything added to this will be little overwhelming.

In terms of the order, if these jobs are performed in a certain order then you'd be best to display the Passed/Failed jobs in that order. That way, the user will know where in the process there was an error.

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  • Thank you for your insight, they are already performed and displayed on order so I will leave it be.
    – fwr nr
    Mar 14, 2018 at 15:45
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    Sometimes it's easy to over complicate something that already works well. There is always a more optimal way but then we go into the realms of testing etc which might be going too far this.
    – sclarke
    Mar 14, 2018 at 16:10
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I agree with sclarke's answer that your current design is obvious enough (with a "bonus point" for including ticks and crosses which will help anyone who is red/green colour-blind).

However, especially if there are quite a few tests – where there is a possibility that a failed test at the end of the list may get overlooked – then I offer a couple of suggestions.

  • If the order of the tests – or more importantly the order of the results of the tests – isn't especially important, you might consider splitting the list in two and listing Failed Tests followed by Successful Tests. Ensuring failed tests are listed first makes them (almost) impossible to miss.

  • If the order of the tests/results does have meaning (e.g., if where in a sequence of tests a test fails is as, or more, important than simply the fact that it failed), then instead you might have a summary above the detailed list along the lines of 1 test failed. 13 tests passed.

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