Empty Error And Loading States

Empty, Error & Loading States — States as First-Class Design

Acknowledgement: Shared by Peter Bamuhigire, techguypeter.com, +256 784 464178.

Use When

• Designing or reviewing the full state set of any component, screen, or flow — not just the "happy" filled state. The default-filled mock is the least common thing a real user sees; empty, loading, partial, and error states are what they hit on day one and on bad days.
• Designing a specific non-happy state: empty/zero (no data yet, first-run, cleared, filtered-to-nothing), error (network, server, validation summary, permission, not-found, offline), loading (skeleton, spinner, progressive/streaming, optimistic), or success/confirmation.
• Treating perceived performance as a design problem — skeletons vs spinners, when to show what, how long before you show anything at all.
• Building a state matrix for a component spec, handoff sheet, or QA gate.

Do Not Use When

• You only need the wording of an error/empty/system message (the formula, tone, the apology vs. blame question) — that is the paired content skill 10-content-design-and-ux-writing/error-empty-and-system-messaging. Use it for copy; use THIS skill for the layout, illustration, motion, skeleton geometry, and interaction.
• You are designing form-field-level validation and inline error affordances inside a form — start at 04-web-and-ui-design/form-ux-design (it owns field anatomy; come here for the page-level error summary and the form's loading/success states).
• The work is purely Core Web Vitals budgeting / Lighthouse gating with no state design — use 00-cross-cutting-ops-qa-a11y/performance-as-ux-and-core-web-vitals.

Required Inputs

• The component or flow being designed and its data source (sync? async? paginated? streamed? user-generated?). Async + user-generated = the richest state set.
• Which states are reachable for this component (run the state matrix in references/state-matrix.md to enumerate them — do not guess).
• The brand's illustration/voice system (or a note that none exists yet), the type scale, and the semantic colour roles for info/success/warning/danger so states are authored, not bolted on with stock clip-art and a generic spinner.
• Latency reality: rough p50/p95 load times per data source — this decides skeleton vs spinner vs instant, and whether optimistic UI is safe.

Workflow

1. Enumerate every state before designing any. Run references/state-matrix.md against the component: ideal, empty (and its sub-types), partial, loading (and its sub-types), error (and its sub-types), success. A state you didn't enumerate is a state you'll ship broken. This step is the whole point — states are designed up front, as siblings of the happy path, never patched in after.
2. Design the empty/zero state as an opportunity, not a void. First-run empty is your best onboarding moment: explain the value, show one primary action, and prefer an authored illustration or a real preview over a sad-face icon. Distinguish the four empties (first-use, user-cleared, no-results-from-filter, error-disguised-as-empty) — they need different copy and different actions. Anti-slop: never the generic centered grey magnifying-glass.
3. Design loading for perceived performance, not honesty. Apply the latency tiers in references/state-matrix.md §Loading. Use skeleton screens that mirror the real layout's geometry (so there is zero layout shift when content arrives — protects CLS, per doctrine/references/web-performance-budgets-2026.md), not centered spinners, for content regions. Spinners only for short, indeterminate, in-place actions (a button submit). Below ~100 ms show nothing; show a skeleton only past the perception threshold so fast loads don't flash. Stream/progressively reveal where the data allows. Skeletons must animate subtly (shimmer/pulse) and honour prefers-reduced-motion (WCAG 2.3.3, doctrine/references/wcag-2.2-criteria.md).
4. Design errors as recoverable, scoped, and honest. Match the error's blast radius to its UI: a failed widget shows a component-level error (the rest of the page still works); a failed page shows a page-level error; never blow up the whole screen for one dead widget. Every error state carries a recovery affordance (Retry, Go back, Contact) and preserves the user's work. Pair colour with an icon and text — never colour alone (WCAG 1.4.1). Offline and permission-denied are distinct error states with distinct actions.
5. Design success/confirmation deliberately. Decide: silent (optimistic, the change is its own confirmation), inline (a toast/checkmark that auto-dismisses), or a full confirmation screen (irreversible/high-stakes actions). Success motion is a reward — keep it brief, purposeful, reduced-motion-safe. Avoid the celebratory-confetti reflex unless the moment truly earns it.
6. Verify against the gates. Target size ≥24px on every state's interactive control (WCAG 2.5.8); focus moves sensibly when a state swaps (don't strand the keyboard user on a removed node, 2.4.3); live regions announce loading/error/success to screen readers (4.1.3); no layout shift between skeleton and loaded; reduced-motion path exists.

Quality Standards

• Every state is authored — illustrations, copy, and motion that belong to this product, not a default centered icon + "No data" + grey spinner (see doctrine/design-doctrine.md, the Anti-Slop Charter). When two empty states are equally clean, ship the one a templating tool would never produce.
• Zero layout shift between loading and loaded: skeleton geometry matches real content.
• No dead ends: every empty and every error offers a next action and preserves user work.
• Accessible in every state, not just the filled one (contrast, focus, target size, live regions, reduced motion).

Decision Rules

Capability Contract

Read and search are required for full state, latency, service, and content contracts. Editing is allowed only for requested implementation. Rendering and execution are required for focus, announcement, timing, rollback, and layout-stability claims.

Degraded Mode

If required evidence or tooling is unavailable, use the scoped fallback below and mark the result unverified. Without failure and latency semantics, deliver a state matrix and stop before prescribing optimistic success. Without renders, mark assistive, responsive, motion, and layout-shift evidence unverified.

Anti-Patterns

• Designing only the happy/filled state and treating the rest as engineering's problem. This is the single most common cause of broken-looking shipped UI.
• Spinner for everything, including content regions and long loads (no layout preview, feels slower, causes CLS when content pops in).
• Skeleton that doesn't match the real layout — content jumps on arrival; you've added CLS while trying to look fast.
• The generic empty state: centered grey magnifying glass + "No results" + nothing to do.
• Error states that destroy work, blame the user, or nuke the whole screen for one failed widget. Vague "Something went wrong" with no retry and no scope.
• Colour-only state signalling (red border, no icon, no text) — fails WCAG 1.4.1 and colour-blind users.
• Flashing a loader for a 60 ms load, or showing a skeleton then a spinner then content (state thrash). Honour the perception threshold.
• Ignoring prefers-reduced-motion on shimmer/pulse/success animations.

Outputs

• A complete per-component state matrix (every reachable state enumerated and designed).
• Designed specs for each state: empty (per sub-type), loading (skeleton geometry + tier rationale), error (per scope + recovery affordance), success (chosen pattern).
• Skeleton layout maps that guarantee no layout shift.
• A11y notes per state (focus handling, live-region announcements, target size, reduced motion).
• Handoff-ready acceptance criteria a developer and QA can check off.

Examples

• See examples/states-for-a-table-component.md — every state of one real component (a paginated data table) designed end to end: ideal, first-run empty, no-results-from-filter, loading skeleton, partial/streaming, row-level and page-level error, offline, and success. Includes skeleton geometry, recovery affordances, motion, and the a11y notes for each.

References

• doctrine/design-doctrine.md — the Mission and the Anti-Slop Charter; states must look authored, never a defaulted spinner-and-sad-icon.
• doctrine/references/web-performance-budgets-2026.md — skeletons over spinners, perceived performance, and CLS (≤0.1): loading-state design is a Core-Web-Vitals lever, and skeleton geometry that prevents layout shift protects the CLS budget directly.
• doctrine/references/wcag-2.2-criteria.md — target size 24px (2.5.8), focus order on state swaps (2.4.3), reduced motion (2.3.3), colour-not-alone (1.4.1), live regions (4.1.3) for each state.
• doctrine/references/ai-slop-taxonomy.md — the convergent defaults (centered grey spinner, generic "No data" empty) this skill exists to replace.
• This skill's references/state-matrix.md — the enumerable set of states every component needs.
• Paired content skill 10-content-design-and-ux-writing/error-empty-and-system-messaging — owns the words of each state; consult it for copy while this skill owns the visual/ interaction design.
• Sibling 04-web-and-ui-design/form-ux-design — field-level validation; this skill owns the page-level error summary and the form's loading/success states.