Comments on: Designing For The Empty States

By: Abinash Mohanty

Abinash Mohanty — Thu, 09 May 2013 13:30:24 +0000

This is indeed a nice article :) I like the way notification copy was written which is really important for any one to understand what he is doing or missing either.

By: Marco

Marco — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 22:20:28 +0000

That’s a pretty good post, cheers

By: Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:00:04 +0000

Really interesting post, thanks. It’s surprising how much friendlier an application feels when you’re presented with an informative ‘empty space’. It’s something I’m definitely going to add to my web applications.

By: Mary Lou

Mary Lou — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:17:00 +0000

Hi Harry,
one of the links was wrong (it’s http://emptystates.tumblr.com/), I’ve updated Craig’s article now! Thanks for the feedback. Cheers, ML

By: Website Toko Online

Website Toko Online — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:13:18 +0000

Safari’s error message is very often wrong or incomplete,

By: Harry

Harry — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 09:32:34 +0000

Getting a lovely empty state for http://emtpystates.tumblr.com/

By: Vince

Vince — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 22:49:32 +0000

Nice article Craig. It’s a good idea to guide users through the app while not overwhelming them. A delicate balance.

By: MrDesigner

MrDesigner — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 21:08:00 +0000

(I cant reply to Craigs message, so I reply to my own instead).

Just out of curiosity, exactly what is wrong / not-so-good about this Nokias empty page?

If I recall correctly, they use this KISS-style UI pattern across all their apps, not only in empty spaces. I liked their KISS approach, so I love to hear why you don’t like it.

By: Craig Dennis

Craig Dennis — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 15:59:54 +0000

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I agree with you that Opera has consistent messaging and I agree that Safari is sometimes inconsistent but you have to also consider who the audience is. The idea is not to hide the errors or to ‘dumb them down’ but to express them in a way that 80% of users will understand. I think the comparison between Safari and Chrome highlights this well, where as Opera seems to sit somewhere in the middle.

I’m sure Nokia have some good examples but in this instance — in their UX Guidelines no less — it’s not great but does draw attention to the need for an empty state. If you find some, please submit them to http://emptystates.tumblr.com/submit

By: Craig Dennis

Craig Dennis — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 15:42:28 +0000

You’re right that they are required to notify the user but it’s just a nasty alert message. When gathering the iOS related content for this post I was in airplane mode and as such I was prompted to turn it off when any app required a connection.

However I think this post points out that you can design for those states and not just leave it for the system to handle. Having said that, I’m very aware that — due to time & budget constrains — these things rarely get included. Which is a shame.