When it comes to Empty States in your product, don't let them go to waste! Instead, leverage these vacant spaces to educate your users, promote key product capabilities, and foster greater user adoption. Great empty states help users to:
start deriving value from your product quicker
get confident with your product without confusion
be encouraged to explore and engage with additional features
navigate efficiently, saving time and helping them achieve their goals faster
With Candu you can create many different flavours of Empty States that all look and feel native to your product. Some common options that we see include:
First Time Use features
A key way to help users get familiar with the ins and outs of an unused feature is by providing them with the self-serve guidance to get up and running. Why not include this information in your empty state instead of saying 'No X here yet'? Add some text to describe what the feature does and then provide CTAs to educate users on the how it works.
Trigger a Modal with a tutorial video in it
Add a CTA that launches a third party tour
Link out to any helpful guides or resources
Upgrade Splash Pages
Empty states present an ideal chance to inspire users to consider purchasing or upgrading their plan. It would be a missed opportunity to simply state 'Upgrade to Pro to access this feature'. Instead, seize the moment by crafting a more compelling message that not only informs users about the availability of exclusive features but also entices them to take action and explore the benefits that come with upgrading their plan.
Recipes & Templates
This is a variation of a first use Empty State but is specific to products that offer a large number of templates, recipes or use cases for users when they are getting started - very common for product-led companies!
Provide users with personalized recommendations on the best templates to try based on what you know they care about or tools they use and remove some of the decision making for them 😏
Creating Empty States in Candu
To create an Empty State you can either start from an existing template or from scratch. There are many templates for you to choose from that make it quick to get started:
If you are creating one from scratch you can use any combination of components to create your desired Empty State design. For example, lets create a simply first use Empty State from scratch:
Empty States are embedded in the same way as other inline Candu content - learn more about this here!