Vol 4. 3-step Design Success 🥔, Fill your Empty States ⛽️ and AI takes a page from Social Media 🔖
Dive into the 4th edition of 'The Sketch', exploring the fastest way to create awesome designs, why empty states are underrated, and what AI can learn from the Social Media revolution.
Framework of the week - The 3-Step Mashup
If you want to know how to create a great design in the quickest possible way, THIS IT IT!
It’s a 3 step process for immediate success.
Let’s get into it:
Take 3 epic examples of something, and then add in a 4th to spice things up 🌶️. Here’s mine from a website homepage project I worked on:
Dissect a part you like from each:
Then combine them into one… Mash it up 🥔… and this is what it should look like 👇🏼
You can then take these designs and create using your specific context, and….
You’ll get something sick, in a few steps (PS it’s probably also a unique combination!).
Enjoy mashing!
Experience of the Week - Empty States
Empty states are a very underrated aspect of a user’s experience.
When people see a product being demoed in full flow, they are wowed. Everything is working with context, friends are added, there are real faces there etc (Apple are masters of this, check out their recent Vision Pro ad and see the number of real-life examples they have).
It’s necessary to show that style to prospective customers, as it is crucial to close the deal. But once you do close the deal, it’s time to get into the setup of things, and everything won’t be ready to go and seamless from the start.
When we start on a new product, there will be lots of information to fill in, so empty states are crucial.
As always, let’s dive into some examples, starting with a ‘meh empty state’. Here is Vercel with their empty state for domains. For crying out loud, give me a button and help me get a domain then!
Next, we have Deel, which does a better job than Vercel, by having a clearly contained space for usage, now and in the future. However, it doesn’t give me an action to do next (granted this may not always be appropriate/possible).
And our final standout example is from Monday.com, which does a great job of pointing me to the relevant action, and illustrating it:
Here’s another set of examples from Telegram, Folk and Mixpanel.
Next time you design, remember to think about all the states your user might see, and to leverage the empty ones!
AI concept of the week - Identifying what is AI vs. what isn’t
Remember back in the mid-2010s when influencer marketing was getting hot, and products were being touted left right and centre from your favourite creators?
Then in 2017, the Federal Trade Commission (the US governing body for buying/selling things) issued guidelines around consumer protection and you started seeing the hashtag #ad on posts.
This is an example of what it’s like when a creator has to disclose if they’re promoting a product today, specifically in the description of the post 👇🏼
Now, this made sense in 2017, but now we’re in 2023, and AI is dominating.
So might the same happen for AI-generated content?
Might it need to happen?
AI has been used in some shape or form by many of us, and content is created by a % of us too. There’s been a natural uptick in content powered by AI as a result, so is it important for us to know when people are creating AI content vs. their own?
If it was important, perhaps this is what it could look like on the popular content platform for noise, LinkedIn:
While #ad has to be declared by the creator themselves, AI-detection could happen without the need for any creators to disclose.
OR they could disclose it voluntarily to show their content is truly theirs 😏
Power to the people!