Empty States Are the Most Honest Onboarding You Have
The screen a new user sees before adding any data tells them what your product is for. Most teams design it last, if at all.
When I run first-use studies, I pay special attention to one moment: the first time a participant lands on a screen with nothing on it. No projects yet, no messages, no saved items. Just a blank space and whatever the design team decided to put there.
That moment is often where people decide whether the product is for them.
Why empty states get neglected
Designers usually work with populated mockups. They look better in reviews and they show the product at its best. The empty version is treated as an edge case, handed to engineering with a placeholder like No items found.
But for every single new user, the empty state is not an edge case. It is the first case.
What I see in sessions
Across several onboarding studies, a few patterns repeat:
- Participants who see a bare No data message often assume something has gone wrong, or that they need to wait for something to load.
- When there is no obvious next action, people start clicking around the navigation, hunting for a starting point. Some give up within a minute.
- When the empty state shows an example or a single clear action, most participants complete their first meaningful task much faster.
In one study of a project management tool, the original empty dashboard had a small grey line of text. Only 2 of 6 participants created a project without help. After we redesigned it with one large button and a sentence explaining what a project was, 5 of 6 did.
Anatomy of a good empty state
A helpful empty state usually answers three questions:
- What is this space for? One short sentence, in the user's language, not internal terminology.
- Why is it empty? Because nothing has been added yet, or because a filter removed everything, or because something failed. These need different messages.
- What should I do next? One primary action, clearly labelled.
Optional extras can help: a sample item the user can explore, a small preview of what the screen looks like once it is full, or an option to import existing data.
Different empties, different words
Teams often reuse one message for very different situations. Compare:
- First use: You haven't created any reports yet. Reports show how your campaigns are doing over time. Then a clear create button.
- No search results: Nothing matches followed by the search term, plus a way to clear filters.
- Error: We couldn't load your reports. With a retry button.
Each one sets a different expectation.
An empty screen is never really empty. It is full of the user's uncertainty.
If you only have time to improve one onboarding moment this quarter, start here. Pull up every empty state in your product, as a brand-new user would see it, and ask whether a stranger would know what to do next.
Cover: Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash.
