The importance of designing empty states
When designing digital products with dynamic content, it’s tempting to design for the user who’s been using the product for a while. Designing a stream of content that has content in it just somehow seems like a more natural or more interesting point of departure than designing an empty stream of content.
However, it’s really important to make sure that the initial user experience is pleasant: the empty state is an obvious place to work on the first hand impression of your product and motivate the user to get started and perhaps explaining what needs to be explained about your product.
Thanks to @craigmdennis we now have a dedicated site that aggregates good examples of welldesigned empty states.
Recommended: The New York Times Cooking
Earlier this year, The New York Times launched their beta version of The New York Times Cooking, which is a vast collection of food recipes. 
It is the most impressive piece of user experience design I have seen in a long time. The…
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