Empty States, Full of Personality
12/12/20243 min read
Role: Product Designer
2023 - 2024
Team:
UX Writer
Summary: Empty states are a great opportunity to add character to a product. When designing the revamped self-serve platform for Coventry University, I worked with a fantastic UX Writer on a series of empty state designs for every edge case. These designs will mostly go unnoticed, but for the users who find themselves in these edge case scenarios, they will be met with a little bit of character and a whole lot of help!
I've lost my way...
Search is the place we often encounter an empty state. The challenge is always to write a message that caters for a broad range of scenarios, as we don't always know why a user might have landed on this state.
The UX Writer on my team thought long and hard about the best guidance to give users to help them search again successfully when searching for an article or a map location.
I created a magnifying glass character who's sad for the user - no-one likes hitting a dead end, so this character sympathizing with you helps soften the blow.
Is it me you're looking for?
The map functionality is a core feature of the Wayfinder product. I added to our little set of characters by introducing a location pin and a slight variant on our other empty state illustrations. The UX Writer on my team did a great job providing clarity on why a user might be seeing this message and how they could go about fixing it.
Have you lost your way?
A 404 page is the perfect place to have a bit of fun!
I took this opportunity to throw in a little Easter Egg for Wayfinder fans and internal Coventry University staff (I have to give kudos to the UX Writer for coming up with this idea!). The character introduced here on this page is the person who built and created Wayfinder originally. We felt it was a nice touch to honor his efforts by positioning him as the 'author' of Wayfinder and the one who directs you back onto your path when you lose your way.
Some great UX writing evidenced here as well if you look really hard!
New news is usually good news but...
Wayfinder is a self-serve platform and is populated with content - news and knowledge articles. We've all encountered a situation where there's nothing on a website, but nothing telling us why nothing is there! Consideration was given to why this might occur and the kind of actions a user could take to find the information they need. And the UX Writer on my team threw in a bit of character for good measure!