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Pattern by Knoveya

Failure Disclosure

Knoveya

Explain a capability failure in plain language and offer an achievable next step.

Design intent

Explain a capability failure in plain language and offer an achievable next step.

When to use

Use this pattern when its control or information directly helps the current task. Start with a real user scenario rather than adding an AI-themed affordance by default.

Example

A booking assistant offers a draft message when reservation tools are unavailable.

This is an illustrative Knoveya scenario, not a claim about a particular shipped product.

Implementation checklist

  • Define the trigger, visible state, allowed action, and completion condition.
  • The message preserves input and does not claim an action happened.
  • Cover missing input, unavailable permissions, interrupted work, and partial results where they apply.
  • Keep keyboard focus, labels, and recovery behavior understandable without motion.

Trade-offs

Extra controls or explanations add reading and decision effort. Prefer the smallest presentation that exposes the relevant consequence. Do not display a guarantee, metric, or permission that the underlying system cannot enforce.

Verify

Reproduce the example with synthetic data and deliberately trigger its failure path. The message preserves input and does not claim an action happened.