Empty screens teach by doing: what goes here, one action to start, and help that is easy to find later.
Best practices
- Empty is a state, not an absence. A quiet symbol, a title that names the thing (“No saved drafts”), one sentence on what goes here, and the one action that fills it. See Empty states.
- Teach by doing. The empty state is the tutorial, not a separate set of screens to tap through.
- Tips are optional, short (two sentences at most), shown in context, one at a time, and never block the screen.
- Help stays reachable later. Guided tours can be skipped and replayed.
- Ask for as little as possible up front. Defer setup until the moment a feature needs it.