Microcopy and Feedback System States

Purpose

Help users understand action, consequence, current state, and recovery without generic, blaming, or implementation-leaking language.

When to Use

• Forms, asynchronous work, errors, empty states, permissions, destructive actions, or onboarding are involved.
• Labels are vague, inconsistent, or omit persistence feedback.

Do

• Inventory labels, guidance, validation, loading, success, warning, error, empty, offline, permission, and destructive-action copy.
• Use user-domain vocabulary and outcome verbs; explain what happened, safe cause, and recovery.
• Preserve input, differentiate empty-first-use from empty-filtered and error states, and test localization and screen-reader order.

Do Not