This article reminded me about the amount of ‘bad’ empty states I’ve come across, these days mostly from the perspective of a user.
I’d love to know if there are any useful ways to test for these kind of things?
How do you know when an app/website has an empty state?
Are there any other good practice guidelines that would be worth testers being aware of?
Does anyone have a list of things that they would normally look for?
In terms of automated tests, I’ve found that visual tests are great for testing empty states. Within our app, we often have a friendly graphic and some explanatory text in an empty state. Being able to grab a screenshot of that and compare it to a previous screenshot has been one of the best ways I’ve found to ensure everything is alright.
Thank you, I was not knowing the term “Empty State” until I read this article.
I used to mention, “404- Error Page:: No Content Available - Message Screen” earlier in my tests.
Is it right to use “404 Error Page” instead of “Empty State” ?
How do you know when an app/website has an empty state?
When I tested the website or app of the ecommerce site, I used to search for incorrect search strings from every search text box to view the results page.
Changing the URL Patttern like updating with higher page number to display the results page.
If there is no proper empty state page, checking with UX Expert of the product or the client directly and making them understand the usage of it.
Verifying the buttons, links, other elements are working as expected from empty state page
Verifying the empty state page on different browsers and responsive (website)
It depends on the context:
How much time do I have?
What access and resources do I have?
What knowledge of the application and/or business and tools do I have?
Am I alone or with someone on this?
Is someone interested in the empty states? for what reason?
If none is interested in the empty state - what would be the reason for me looking into it? do I see a risk, a problem?
Where am I looking for an empty state? app front, back, api, storage?
Is the empty state needed to be used by something? by what, when, how, for what reason?