diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 2fd805a97..7a69ad1b3 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -646,7 +646,7 @@ CUDA_VERSION := $(shell $(NVCC) --version | grep -oP 'release (\K[0-9]+\.[0-9])'
 ifeq ($(shell awk -v "v=$(CUDA_VERSION)" 'BEGIN { print (v < 11.7) }'),1)
 ifndef CUDA_DOCKER_ARCH
 ifndef CUDA_POWER_ARCH
-$(error I ERROR: For CUDA versions < 11.7 a target CUDA architecture must be explicitly provided via CUDA_DOCKER_ARCH)
+$(error I ERROR: For CUDA versions < 11.7 a target CUDA architecture must be explicitly provided via environment variable CUDA_DOCKER_ARCH, e.g. by running "export CUDA_DOCKER_ARCH=compute_XX" on Unix-like systems, where XX is the minimum compute capability that the code needs to run on. A list with compute capabilities can be found here: https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus )
 endif # CUDA_POWER_ARCH
 endif # CUDA_DOCKER_ARCH
 endif # eq ($(shell echo "$(CUDA_VERSION) < 11.7" | bc),1)