Help Users Understand Their Next Steps from “Empty States”
An empty state is a view that would normally show a lot of information to a user—a list of projects, albums, tasks, and so on—but because the user is new, they haven’t yet created anything.
The default behavior of many apps is to simply show an empty view where the content would be. For a new user, this is a pretty poor experience and a massive missed opportunity for you to give them some extra orientation and guidance.
An empty state should usually show some helpful text, hints, and maybe a friendly graphic or icon. Now, because these views can appear on a per-feature basis, it’s easy to be very task-oriented in the advice you give. If the user views the to-do list, you can advise on making the first to-do item.
On a profile, you can guide the user to include a bio or add an avatar picture.
Figure 26.1: The Basecamp to-do list before the user has created any items...
