Bottom-up parsing technology advanced and automated static analysis of source code efficiently but raised the challenge of maintaining understandable communication between compilers and humans. Reporting errors in the source code in human-understandable language is essential for software development process efficiency and especially for students learning programming. This study presents a new solution for compiler error messages, 3-phase parsing techniques that overcome some limitations of LR parsers in reporting friendly error messages. We evaluated the new design with a human-subject control experiment. The experiment compares the quality of syntax error messages of an educationally customized compiler EduCC with error messages produced by GNU GCC and Microsoft Visual C++. EduCC implements the 3-phase parsing techniques for a subset of C++ language. The participants were 53 students in Computer Science and Engineering at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. In a within-group experiment design, the participants had to find errors in and fix erroneous C++ programs. The experiment shows that 3-phase parsing techniques improved the quality of syntax error messages.