I love this. OK, twitter was having some problems, but look how they handled it! An illustrator worked with a developer to make sure that this, in itself, was not a total bummer to the consumer. Really nice wacky brand experience.

Next time you're thinking about the drudgery of error handling, think about your audience: cold, confused and alone with an ERROR screen confronting them... Many are sure that whatever just broke was their fault. Then think of this ... whale, being lifted effortlessly over the waves. Not only is this feedback from the site on what is hapening, it is an extremely polite way of saying we did not properly plan load capacity and messed up--please come back later.

The opportunity to surprise and delight an audience is everywhere! Even, and maybe especially, in the areas of weakness. Sounds like a zen proverb, but it's all about the details.

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