An approach is provided for personalizing an error message for a user. Corrective actions performed by the user are monitored. The corrective actions cause a resolution of an instance of a problem within a computer system. Based on the monitored corrective actions, sources of information accessed by the user to resolve the instance of the problem are determined. After resolution of the instance of the problem, another instance of the same problem is detected. In response to detecting the other instance of the problem, the error message is augmented with a summary of the sources of information and/or hyperlinks that access the sources of information. The augmented error message is presented to the user.