**Before I go any further, let me tell you who the “we” is in this story. Our incredible team of illustrators at Shopify include myself ; Ryan Coleman, Holly Schofield & Erin Moncrieff ; with occasional help from Blake Stevenson & Alek Doesnt-have-his-last-name-on-slack-im-not-a-detective-ok**

As someone who previously credited a not insignificant amount of my successes to my attention to detail (read: neurotic perfectionism), learning that working at scale means being extremely deliberate with how you spend your time has been—to say the least—a challenge. Where I previously determined “good enough” and “finished” by —I don’t know—general merit and quality; I now make that call by some complicated calculation of number of users, how long they will see it, and the potential lasting impression it may have.

This puts empty states in a precarious position. Not many users will see them, and if they see them, it will be brief. We’re talking low percentages here people. I don’t do a custom illustration for sub 50K users y’all. We spent a very, very long time considering just leaving the old empty states in all together. Yes, it hurts me to see two different illustration styles on our product. BUT if, say, only 2 percent of users are going to see any given empty state in the old illustration style, briefly, and also they probably won’t notice—or give a shit—maybe our time is better spent somewhere else. Like, c’mon Meghan. Get it together. Are you a designer? Are you someone who solves for actual needs? Or do you just like to make beautiful things? Repeat after me: you can handle an inconsistency in the back corner of your product for the sake of an overall better experience for the majority of users. You can handle an inconsistency in the back corner of your product for the sake of an overall better experience for the majority of users. You can ha—

Yeah I mean you know where I was going with that: we didn’t do that. Despite the low users, low duration, low give-a-shitery, we decided to go all in on empty states. Two reasons: impact, and polish.

Yes, 2 percent* of users are going to see any given empty state, briefly, but when you consider why they’re seeing them, that 2 percent matters. They’re a new user, exploring the product, deciding if they want to stay. They’re getting frustrated because they don’t know what to do next. They don’t understand what your feature is, why it’s there, or how to use it. These are some pretty freakin’ critical moments. Individually, it’s hard to justify spending time on any given empty state, but collectively, these moments matter. Any given user probably won’t see your empty state, but they will eventually see a empty state. Are we really going to serve up “lol something went wrong and we don’t know what it was but look we drew a cat haha we’re so down to earth and relatable, right? Right??” to 100% of users? You know, even though we do in fact know what went wrong? When we are, in fact, perfectly positioned to turn this negative moment into a positive moment with actual education and understanding? No, we’re not. We’re better than that.

AND yes, 2 percent* of users are going to see any given empty state, briefly, but when you consider what abandoning those 2 percent of users says about your product, or your philosophy as an company, that 2 percent matters. Attention to detail, consistency, and polish matter in a product. They build trust. They say we’re thoughtful, thorough and will continue to support you, even if you’re not our primary user. When you come across an empty state that we decided to leave in the old style, it says that we neglect our product. We go after something new and shiny before taking care of what we’ve already built. It’s embarrassing. It’s an unkept lawn; a broken window; a pizza with all the toppings picked off. Attention to detail matters because when you show that you care about the small details, people trust you to care about the big ones.

Once we decided we were committed to creating 39 (and counting) thoughtful, and unique empty states, we had the added benefit of volume. We built ourselves a playground where we could develop and iterate on our new illustration style. It became an opportunity for every illustrator to inject their personality, drawing style and ideas into the new Shopify illustration style, and build off each other as we moved on to the next empty state. It changed the new illustration style from something that was solved by one person, and passed down, to something that was solved as a team (which, if you ask me, is it’s greatest strength). We were able to look at the how we wanted to approach each illustration individually, as well as looking at the body of work as a whole. Simultaneously thinking strategically about what we wanted to say with them collectively, while exploring the nuances how we can change our tone of voice between individual illustrations.

One of the ongoing challenges of working at Shopify, is trying to succinctly capture and articulate what our user looks like. You can’t. Our users are freakin’ snowflakes. We have 9 personas and counting—and they’re only an approximation anyway. The story of how someone became an entrepreneur—what it means to them to be an entrepreneur—is inherently unique. The empty states gave us a new angle to articulate our empathy and understanding of what it means to be an entrepreneur. Instead of trying to capture it succinctly, with a single story or a persona, it became a tapestry. Individually, each empty state a single snapshot any given entrepreneurs day-to-day; collectively the body of work illustrating the diversity—of environment, of daily tasks, of challenges, of age/gender/race/background—of entrepreneurship.