Onboarding, Empty States & the Full State Set

Most teams design exactly one state: the screen full of beautiful data. Then it ships and the first real user sees a blank rectangle, a spinner that never resolves, an error with no recovery, and a permission prompt on launch they instantly deny. The discipline that separates senior work is simple and unglamorous: design every state a view can be in, not just the happy one. A screen is not a picture; it is a state machine. This skill is the checklist of states you owe every view, and the craft of turning the emptiest, earliest, most fragile moments — first run and the blank slate — into the highest-leverage moments you have.

1. The full state set — the discipline

Before a view is "done," walk it through every state below. Each is a real screen a real user will hit. Skipping one doesn't delete the state; it ships it undesigned.