Do you think its user is displaying an error message in tooltips unfriendly?
when my user enters data confirmed as incorrect, red with white exclamation mark is displayed on the right side of the text box with incorrect data. The error message is displayed only when the user hovers over invalid data in the text field.
Do you think this is a bad user experience?
I could show the red error text on the right side of the text boxes if there was still room ...
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The correct answer ultimately depends on your applications and users. Consider the tradeoff:
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If the user can spot validation errors when they see the error icon - along the lines, "shit, I forgot to enter the name!". - then it sounds fine.
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But, since it adds an extra step , it will be annoying if errors are hard to find and the user has to click / hover over the icon to see the description before they can figure out how to fix them.
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What I did was show the error in the popup if the user hovers with the mouse, but if they click on the exclamation mark then the popup won't disappear when they go away from the error label. This way, the user can make a copy and paste the error message into the email if they want to ask for help.
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If you mean "hovering" like a mouse is used to move the cursor to hover over a field, then this one might not be compatible with touch (non-mouse) interfaces such as iPhone / iPad. This can affect users of touchscreen PCs (such as HP TouchSmart PCs) because they are forced to use their mouse. This can be mitigated somewhat if the error message is still displayed when the field has focus, not just on hover.
Interestingly, Steve Jobs recently mentioned freezes and rollovers in his rationale for why iPhones / iPads don't support Flash:
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/
"...
Fifth, theres a Touch.
Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not touchscreens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on rollovers , which bring up menus or other items when the mouse pointer hovers over a specific location. Apple's revolutionary multi-touch interface does not use a mouse, and there is no rollover concept. Most Flash sites will need to be rewritten to support touch devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash sites, why not use modern technologies such as HTML5, CSS and JavaScript? ... "
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