Empty States and Illustrations

CREATE AN IMPROVED USER EXPERIENCE WITH EMPTY STATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

The first and foremost thing in the digital realm is User Experience (UX). Empty States & Illustrations for UX: While many believe user centric design means designing everything considering the users, they often forget about empty states and illustrations. When properly designed, these elements can greatly improve a users experience when interacting with an application or website. This article examines what empty states are all about, how illustrations could make them better and a guide for including this element in your design practice.

What Are Empty States?

Empty states are the areas on your apps/website where there is no data to show users. These are manifested in many situations like,

The state where a user newly installs an app, and has no data in it yet.

For when a user deletes all data in one area.

If data is not load successfully.

Empty states present an opportunity to interact with our users, direct them on the next steps they should be taking and offer a moment of delight in what is otherwise empty space.

Use of Images in EMpty States

Empty states illustrations accomplish multiple goals;

Empty space:

It fills in empty spaces, making them more visually appealing and less intimidating.

Communication – Illustrations can communicate ideas faster and with more impact than text.

Custom Illustrations that reflect your Brand Personality. Custom drawings also can help show off the character and tone of a brand in an enjoyable manner

User Guidance – They would provide guidance to the users on how they can fill this empty state, could be hints or steps.

Design best practices for Empty states with illustration

Be clear and concise: Reduce the overall tl;dr effect in your content. Do not pack all the information in empty state. A simple concept combined with a short message can work beautifully.

Commitment – Ensure your analysis matches the look and feel of all accompanying application or website materials This helps in creating a strong brand identity, and ensures consistent experience.

Recommended uses:

Use the empty state for two things – to guide users what they need to do and an escape if it is not mandatory. Be sure to followup your written description with an instruction, or a call-to-action (CTA), for users on what they should do next.

This conversely becomes negative reinforcement, frame the empty state from a positive perspective. Rather than emphasizing what data is no longer present, focus on the actions that are available to encourage the user to perform a different function.

Contextual RelevanceIllustration should be relevant to the context of empty state For instance, a pic of a boar with an enormous check referent to the variety might be perfect for an application that is being habitually used as in some tasks app.

When you can:

if appropriate, apply a dash of humor or whimsy in your empty state illustrations. It can make for a fun and memorable user experience.

Effective Empty States Examples

Dropbox:

Dropbox leverages simple and friendly illustrations as well as clear messages to direct users exactly where they should go when uploading files.

Slack provide friendly, casual reminders that align with their colorful brand voice.

Asana :

Features a minimalist illustration that instigates the user to start creating tasks & projects.

Conclusion

Empty States and Illustrations is not what we think as fillers for empty space; they are the golden goose gifted to us on a silver platter. It is these little moments that might be mundane, but you can actually make something of it by adding some visual appeal and a clear line above or below to give the user direction. And we must keep in mind that every interaction counts, and performing a well-designed empty state can have powerful results.

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