A short guide to empty states

We end up explaining this on discovery calls often enough that it deserved writing down. Everything we would tell a client about empty states in the time it takes to drink a coffee.

Design decisions are the ones clients feel most confident arguing about, which makes it worth separating taste from evidence early. Doing this properly once is usually cheaper than doing it approximately three times.

What it costs to ignore

The first screen a new user sees is usually empty. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

What good looks like

An empty state should teach the next action. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. Assume whoever inherits this will have half your context and none of your patience.

Common failure modes

Blank space with no guidance reads as broken. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

How to tell if yours is fine

The measurable part of design is whether people can find what they came for and act on it without hesitating. Three things worth confirming about empty states before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• The first screen a new user sees is usually empty — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

Pick the one that would hurt most if it failed, and start there.