The power of empty states — how Slack drives user activation

Onboarding, delightful copy and the element of surprise

Do you know the dinosaur?

The ‘Lonely T-Rex’ of Chrome.

Or perhaps you’ve seen the ‘Blue screen of death’ on windows.

Image source

Or maybe Apple’s ‘Spinning wheel of death’ ☠️

Pre-auto save these signalled the end of the world. Lost files. Reboots. Frozen screens.

Seeing these stirs feelings of frustration and dread (as the names suggest).

These are what we call empty states.

Empty states are what you see when a page or area that could be blank. Like a search bar before you’ve started searching, a chat before you’ve sent a message, an error state or a new document you’ve opened.

They are non-spaces where there’s technically nothing to display. As a result, these are spaces that are often overlooked in product design.