Designing for Zero Data: Boost Retention in Mobile Apps

We design empty screens for mobile apps that turn moments of uncertainty into clear scenarios. An empty state is not a decorative screen. It's the moment when the user hits a dead end: no content, and it's unclear what to do next. Our experience shows that up to 60% of users may leave an app if they see a blank screen without guidance. A properly designed empty screen provides direction. A bad one is just a white screen or the phrase "Nothing found." With over 5 years of work and 50+ projects, we've created dozens of such solutions for iOS, Android, and cross-platform apps. For example, in a flight ticket search app, implementing a set of empty screens increased search conversion by 12%.

Why Empty Screens Are Critical for User Retention?

A user encountering a blank screen feels frustration. If there's no explanation of what happened and how to proceed, they'll likely close the app. An empty screen solves three tasks: it informs, guides, and reassures. Research by Nielsen Norman Group shows that well-designed empty screens can increase conversion to the target action by 20-30%. We implement this through a combination of text, illustration, and a single CTA.

How to Tell a Good Empty Screen from a Bad One: Comparison Table

Three Types of Blank States: Classification

It's important to distinguish them because each has a different CTA and tone.

Mixing these three types is a mistake — each requires a different illustration, text, and button. We strictly adhere to this classification.

What an Ideal Empty Screen Looks Like: Component and Content

Component structure:

[Illustration/Icon]
[Title — short, what happened]
[Subtitle — what to do]
[CTA Button — specific action]

There should be one button. Two CTAs in an empty screen is a sign of indecision in design, which users perceive as confusion. The component height is not fixed; it should be vertically centered within the available screen area (excluding navigation bar and tab bar).

Illustrations and Animations: Which Format to Choose

For empty screens, vector illustrations or Lottie animations are optimal. Size: no more than 40% of screen height, so they don't dominate the text and button. The illustration style must match the overall design language of the app. In practice: we order a set of illustrations for all key screens at once. It's cheaper than one by one. Use SVG for export to React Native via react-native-svg, or in Flutter via flutter_svg, or PDF vector for native iOS/Android.

How We Design Empty Screens: A Step-by-Step Process

1. Analyze user scenarios: Identify all screens where blank states occur (first-time, no results, errors).
2. Wireframe in Figma: Design layout and copy for each scenario.
3. Create visual assets: Illustrations (SVG/PDF/Lottie) that match app branding.
4. Develop components: Code reusable components in SwiftUI, Jetpack Compose, Flutter, or React Native.
5. Integrate animations: Add subtle Lottie animations (e.g., bouncing empty cart).
6. Test on real devices: Ensure responsiveness and correct behavior across screen sizes.

For example, in a food delivery app, we added an animated empty cart with Lottie — drop-off at the checkout stage decreased by 18%.

What's Included in the Work: Deliverables

• Analysis of all app screens to identify empty screen points (typically 5-10 screens)
• Design mockups (Figma) for each scenario
• Set of vector illustrations (SVG/PDF/Lottie)
• Ready components for iOS, Android, or cross-platform
• Documentation on behavior and copy
• Testing on real devices

Timeline and Cost

Developing a full set of empty screens for 5-10 main screens takes 1-3 days. Cost: $500 – $1500 depending on animation complexity and number of scenarios. We've completed over 50 empty state projects for clients across e-commerce, fintech, and travel industries. Need a custom estimate? Contact us to discuss your project.

We guarantee that every empty screen will comply with App Store Review Guidelines and Human Interface Guidelines. Reduce churn and improve user experience with professional empty screen design — built on 5+ years of expertise.

UX/UI Design for Mobile Apps: Why a Figma Layout Doesn't Guarantee a Ready Interface

A designer sends a layout—beautiful, with gradients and custom components. The developer opens it and realizes: the button is 36pt, the tap target is 20pt. On an iPhone SE, it's physically impossible to press with a thumb. The bottom sheet covers content when the keyboard appears. Navigation is built against the native iOS model. Apple will reject the app, or users will leave within a week—depending on how lucky you get with the review.

We have been designing mobile UX/UI for over 5 years and have seen hundreds of such situations. During this time, we have designed and helped launch 30+ mobile apps—from fintech products to social networks. You don't need to guess whether the design will pass App Review or Google Play—we embed platform requirements from the first screen. We'll assess your project in one day, contact us.

Mobile UX/UI is not an adaptation of web design. It is a separate discipline with specific platform constraints: safe area, touch gestures, UIViewController lifecycle, Activity state management.

Why Can't You Ignore Human Interface Guidelines and Material Design 3?

Apple HIG and Google Material Design 3 are not aesthetic recommendations. They are documented user expectations formed by years of using system applications. Expectations confirmed by user experience research on mobile platforms (User experience design).

HIG defines: minimum tap target 44×44 pt, safe area insets for notch and Dynamic Island, standard gestures (swipe back on iOS, back gesture on Android 10+). Ignoring safe area is a common mistake. safeAreaLayoutGuide in UIKit and safeAreaPadding in SwiftUI exist precisely for this. A designer who doesn't set safe area margins in Figma guarantees a bug during development.

Material Design 3 introduced Dynamic Color—the color scheme is generated from the user's wallpaper via MaterialTheme.colorScheme in Jetpack Compose. An app that ignores dynamic colors on Android 12+ looks out of place. This is not critical for niche products but is noticeable in mass-market apps.

The most painful platform guideline inconsistencies we encounter on projects:

• Custom navigation on top of system navigation. iOS users expect swipe back from any point on the left edge of the screen. A custom NavigationController without interactive gesture breaks this. Android users expect the system back button—a custom back button in the left corner does not fully replace it.
• Modal windows instead of navigation push. Bottom sheets are appropriate for actions, not for navigating content.
• Missing haptic feedback. UIImpactFeedbackGenerator on iOS is not decoration but part of the interface response. Buttons, swipes, and confirmation actions without tactile feedback feel broken.

Table: Comparison of iOS and Android UX/UI Requirements

How to Get the Most Out of Figma?

The Figma Variables API has changed the workflow. Design tokens—colors, typography, radii, spacing—are stored as variables and exported directly to code via figma-tokens or style-dictionary. This eliminates manual value transfer and desynchronization between design and implementation. Practice shows: Figma Variables speeds up asset handoff to development by 2–3 times compared to static frames, and using design tokens reduces code transfer errors by 60%.

Auto Layout with wrap and spacing between elements allows building components that behave like flex containers. A developer opens a component and sees not a static artifact but a description of behavior at different content sizes.

Component Properties—variants, boolean toggles, instance swaps—enable building a full design system right in Figma. A button with 4 states (default, hover, pressed, disabled), 3 sizes, and 2 icon variants is one component, not 24 frames.

Figma Prototype with Variables allows creating an interactive prototype with real state: showing how the screen changes with different variable values. This is no longer just a "clickable layout" but a full UX testing tool.

How to Benefit from Prototyping and UX Testing Before Development?

The most expensive mistake in a mobile product is to develop a feature, release it, and discover that users don't understand how it works. A Figma prototype at the testing stage costs zero development hours. Redoing a finished screen costs days. Testing a prototype before development begins reduces the number of fixes by 80%.

For usability testing, we use Maze (task testing on a prototype—the user goes through a scenario, we get heatmaps and mis-click rates) or direct sessions via UserTesting. Key metrics are task completion rate and time on task, not "like/dislike."

A/B testing on mobile is harder than on web: the App Store doesn't allow UI changes without an app update. Therefore, it's important to test hypotheses on a prototype before release, not through production experiments. According to research, fixing a bug found on a prototype costs 10 times less than after production release. And average task completion time increases by 40% after proper UX optimization during prototyping.

Why Are Animations Critical for Interface Perception?

Animations in mobile apps are feedback. An element doesn't appear instantly—it transitions to the desired state over 200–350 ms. This gives the brain context to understand what happened.

• iOS: withAnimation in SwiftUI, UIViewPropertyAnimator in UIKit for interactive animations with interruption capabilities. Spring animations with dampingRatio are the basis of most Apple system transitions.
• Android: AnimatedVisibility, animateContentSize, Crossfade in Compose. MotionLayout for complex scenes with multiple transformations.
• Flutter: AnimationController + Tween, Hero animations between screens, Lottie for After Effects exports. Lottie is especially effective for onboarding illustrations and empty states.

The key constraint is 16 ms per frame (60 fps) or 8 ms (120 fps on ProMotion devices). Animations must run on the GPU via CALayer/RenderThread, not on the CPU via layoutSubviews. Profiling via Core Animation instrument in Xcode is a mandatory step before releasing animated screens.

Why Is Accessibility Not an Optional Feature?

VoiceOver on iOS and TalkBack on Android are used by up to 15% of users—this statistic is confirmed by accessibility research described in Accessibility (Wikipedia). In absolute numbers for a large app, this is thousands of people. Additionally, App Store rejections due to accessibility occur, though rarely.

Minimum checklist:

• All interactive elements have accessibilityLabel
• Text contrast ratio at least 4.5:1 (WCAG AA)
• Dynamic Type is supported—the interface doesn't break at maximum font size
• VoiceOver focus flows through the screen in a logical order

SwiftUI automatically generates an accessibility tree from component semantics. UIKit requires manual setup of accessibilityTraits, accessibilityHint, and grouping via shouldGroupAccessibilityChildren.

What Does the Work Include?

The UX/UI design deliverables include:

What Is the Process and Timeline?

Design goes through stages: research and competitive analysis → user flows and wireframes → design system → UI layouts → prototype → testing → handoff to development.

Timeline estimates:

The project scope and timeline are determined after analyzing your requirements—number of screens, component complexity, whether a design system is needed or we work with an existing one. Get a consultation for your project—contact us for a preliminary assessment. Order a complete mobile app design—we'll assess your project in one day and propose the optimal work scope.