Brand & design · Practice guide

Design clear messages for waiting, mistakes and empty results

Illustrative situation

A website design should show more than the ideal completed screen. People also encounter an empty appointment list, a form sending a request or a message that something could not be completed. Ask the supplier to include those situations in the design and explain what the visitor can do next. Otherwise, important wording and behaviour may be improvised late in the project.

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Build an identity that helps people understand and recognise your practice.

What this means for your practice

Ask the supplier to show what people see when a request is sending, details are missing or something is unavailable. Review the explanation and next step alongside the appearance of each screen.

An example to discuss with your team

Ask the supplier to demonstrate a fictional enquiry that fails to send and show how the visitor can recover.

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Define a coherent identity before producing the assets.
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Carry the same verified message across print and digital.

A practical example

For example, a booking button may need to make it clear that a request is being sent, then distinguish success from a sending problem. Ask to see each step with fictional details and ask reception to check the proposed recovery advice. Include use without a mouse in the demonstration. A good result keeps people oriented when the website is busy or something goes wrong, rather than leaving the most stressful moment as an unexplained blank area or generic error.

Include the wording for a genuinely unavailable service or empty appointment list. Those situations need an accurate explanation rather than a generic technical failure message. Ask the service team what a visitor can actually do next, then have the supplier show that route working.

Make the design useful in everyday work

List the situations visitors encounter between starting a task and completing it. Include waiting, missing information, an empty result and a service genuinely unavailable. Ask the supplier to show the wording and usable next step for each with fictional examples. Those states need different explanations; a generic failure message should not stand in for all of them. Have the service team confirm what can actually be offered as recovery. Review how the person recognises that a request is still being processed so repeated clicks do not arise from uncertainty. The difficult moments deserve the same attention as the ideal screen.

How to check the result

Record important situations still missing a clear message or next step.

Turn reading into a next step

Your action checklist

Work through these checks with your team or supplier. Tick the ones you have resolved and leave unknowns open.

Checks to discuss

Record what you know, what is still missing and the answer you need from your team or supplier.

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Further reading

These sources provide background for the topic. The practice examples and checklist are illustrative planning suggestions from Kay & Co.

Related guides

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