Most products I audit have great onboarding flows, polished dashboards, carefully designed settings pages.

Then you hit the empty state and it’s like someone gave up.

A clipart illustration. Generic copy that sounds like it was written by committee. Zero help on what to do next.

Your user onboarding can be perfect, but if users freeze at an empty state, none of it matters.

The Psychology of Nothing

Empty space in a UI makes users assume nothing exists yet.

Not “the feature hasn’t loaded” or “I need to add something.” Just: nothing here.

The moment users see emptiness, their brain stops looking for possibility. You have about three seconds to redirect that assumption before they close the tab or click away.

Most empty state design doesn’t even try.

Types of Empty State Design We Actually See

Not all empty states are created equal. Each needs different treatment.

The fresh-account empty state User just signed up. Terrified. Has no idea what to do first. This is where most products lose people—not in onboarding, but right after it ends.

The cleared-everything empty state Someone deleted their entire project in a rage or finished all their tasks. (Rare, but happens.) Needs different copy than the fresh-account version because they know how the product works.

The filtered-into-oblivion empty state Data exists but user filtered it into invisibility. Screen says “no results” but doesn’t explain why. Seen support tickets spiral because of this.

The broken-connection empty state Integration failed, API timed out, something went wrong. Most teams treat this the same as “you haven’t added anything yet.” Wrong move.

Each type needs its own empty state design approach. Most products use one generic version for everything.

(Usually featuring a cartoon rocket. Not sure why.)

Why Most Empty States Fail

Reviewed a dashboard last week that said “Oops! Nothing here yet!”

Helpful.

User knows nothing is there—that’s why the screen is empty. The word “Oops” suggests something went wrong. “Yet” implies they should have done something already.

Three words, three problems.

Most empty states fail for the same reason product copy fails: committees water it down until it says nothing.

Original version probably said something useful like “Add your first project to get started.”

Then someone said it wasn’t “on brand.” Someone else said it wasn’t “friendly” enough. Legal wanted to clarify “project” meant “workspace configuration instance.”

You end up with: “Your journey begins here! ✨”

(Nobody’s journey begins anywhere. They’re staring at an empty screen wondering if they made a mistake signing up.)

The Copy Disasters We’ve Seen

Seen this one a dozen times: “Your workspace is currently experiencing a data absence.”

Changed it to: “Add your first task.”

Support tickets about “Is this broken?” dropped by half. (Give or take.)

Had a client whose empty state was 400 words explaining their data model. Users don’t want to understand your database schema. They want to know what button to click.

Another product we audited: “Looks like you haven’t configured your itemized preference schema yet!”

Translation for humans: “Add a thing.”

Most UX copy problems show up in empty states because that’s where your actual voice meets users—not your marketing copy, not your feature announcements, just: what do we say when there’s nothing here?

Decoration Is Not Direction

The clipart problem.

Someone designs a beautiful illustration of a person planting seeds or building blocks or launching a rocket. Takes three weeks. Looks great in design reviews.

Then ships with copy that says “Get started!”

(Started with what? Clicking which button? Adding what type of data?)

Seen this pattern constantly: teams spend 90% of effort on the illustration, 10% on the words, 0% on the actual problem.

Empty state design isn’t about making emptiness look pretty. It’s about getting users past emptiness as fast as possible.

Guilt-Based Copy Doesn’t Work

“Your dashboard is looking a bit lonely.” “Nothing to see here… yet!” “Looks like you haven’t added anything.”

This assumes users feel guilty about not using your product yet.

They don’t. They feel confused.

One product we worked with had empty state copy that said “Your workspace feels empty. Let’s fix that together!”

Changed it to: “Add your first client.”

Activation went up 34% in two weeks.

Not because the new copy was clever—because it told users exactly what to do and didn’t make them feel bad about not having done it yet.

What Good Empty State Design Actually Does

Good empty state design has three jobs:

1. Explain what’s supposed to be here “Client list” or “Project dashboard” or “Transaction history”—not “Your data” or “Content” or other abstractions.

2. Show exactly how to add the first one Button label that matches what they’re adding. Not “Get Started” or “Begin” or “Create New.” Just “Add Client” or “New Project.”

3. Optional: Show what it looks like when it’s not empty Preview or placeholder showing one example item. Not decoration—demonstration.

That’s it.

No illustrations of people collaborating. No inspirational quotes. No “Your journey awaits.”

Just: here’s what goes here, here’s how to add it.

The Business Case From Our Work

Empty states kill activation more than any other single UX element. Here’s what we’ve seen:

Product we audited last month: Users completing onboarding: 78% Users adding first item after onboarding: 41%

37% dropped off at the empty state. Not because onboarding was bad—because the empty state gave them nowhere to go.

Changed empty state from illustration + “Welcome!” to simple “Add your first contact” button.

Activation jumped to 68% in three weeks.

Another product (SaaS analytics tool): 23% of support tickets were variations of “Is this working?” or “Where’s my data?”

All from users staring at empty dashboards not understanding they needed to connect something first.

Added empty state that said “Connect your first data source to see analytics” with big obvious button.

Support tickets dropped to 9% of total. Didn’t change anything else.

Time-to-value problem: One client was obsessed with reducing time-to-value. Kept adding features to onboarding, making it shorter, testing different copy.

Real problem: users finished onboarding, saw empty state, didn’t know what to do, left.

Fixed the empty state. Average time-to-first-action went from 3 days to 11 minutes.

(Onboarding was never the problem.)

How We Actually Test Empty State Design

Here’s what we do:

1. Pull up empty state, show it to someone who’s never seen your product If they can’t tell you:

• What’s supposed to be here
• How to add something
• What button to click

Your empty state design is broken.

2. Count the words If your empty state copy is more than 10 words, it’s too long. Users don’t read—they scan for the action.

3. Remove the illustration If your empty state stops working without the illustration, the illustration is doing the work your copy should do.

4. The “broken or empty” test Take screenshot of empty state. Show to someone. Ask: “Is this broken or is it supposed to be empty?”

If they can’t tell immediately, you have a problem.

5. Check if button label matches the thing being added “Add Client” for client list. “New Project” for project dashboard. Not “Get Started” for everything.

If you need a tooltip to explain your empty state, your empty state is the problem.

Empty State Design Evolves With Your Product

Your empty state design should change as your product matures.

Early stage (first 100 users): Needs more hand-holding. “Add your first client by clicking the button below” isn’t patronizing—it’s necessary because users have no mental model yet.

Growth stage (hundreds of users): Can simplify. “Add client” button is enough. Users coming in have heard about your product, seen screenshots, have some expectation.

Mature product (thousands of users): Minimal empty states work because most users know what they’re doing. “No clients yet” with add button is sufficient.

But early-stage products that use mature-product empty states lose users. And mature products that use early-stage empty states feel patronizing.

We’ve seen teams ship MVP designs and never revisit empty states—even after adding 47 features and getting 10,000 users.

Empty state still says “Welcome to [Product Name]! Let’s get started on your journey!”

(Your journey is to delete that copy and replace it with something useful.)

Practical Steps That Actually Work

If you have 10 minutes: Open your product. Log out. Create test account. Note every empty state you hit. Ask yourself: “If I’d never seen this product before, would I know what to do?”

Most of the time, answer is no.

If you have an hour: Write down every empty state in your product. List them:

• Fresh account empty states
• Filtered/searched with no results
• Deleted everything
• Failed to load

Design separate copy for each. They’re different problems.

If you have a day: Record five users going through onboarding and hitting their first empty state. Watch where they pause, what they click, how long they stare at the screen.

If they’re frozen for more than 10 seconds, your empty state design is broken.

If you want our help: We do product UX audits where we map every empty state, test them, and prioritize which ones are killing your activation. Usually find 3-4 critical empty states that need immediate fixing.

Then we redesign them. Not with illustrations and inspirational copy—with clear direction that gets users moving.

Final Thought

Empty states are where users decide if your product is worth learning.

Not in onboarding (they’re still optimistic). Not in feature pages (they’re already using it). In that moment when they see nothing and have to figure out what comes next.

Most teams treat empty state design like visual polish. Optional. Nice-to-have.

It’s not.

It’s the difference between users who activate and users who close the tab and never come back.

Stop decorating emptiness. Start directing action.