Communicating about availability.
WHAT A STATUS PAGE PROVIDES
A single place customers check before contacting you.
WHAT IT MUST BE
Hosted separately from your infrastructure.
WHY
A status page that is down during an outage is worthless.
WHAT TO SHOW
Current state of each component Ongoing incidents, with updates Planned maintenance Recent history
WHAT UPDATES SHOULD CONTAIN
What is affected What you know What you are doing When the next update comes
WHY THE NEXT UPDATE TIME
It stops people checking constantly and reduces support volume.
HOW OFTEN TO UPDATE
At the interval you promised, even if nothing has changed.
WHAT TO AVOID
Marking things operational while customers are affected Vague language concealing impact Silence during an incident
WHY UNDERSTATING IS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE
Customers experiencing the problem know, and the discrepancy destroys trust in the page.
WHAT PUBLISHING UPTIME HONESTLY ACHIEVES
Credibility, which is worth more than an unblemished record nobody believes.
WHAT TO OFFER
Subscription to updates.
WHAT TO PUBLISH AFTER SIGNIFICANT INCIDENTS
An account of what happened.
WHAT TO RESIST
Removing history.
