Often in UX design, transparency and feedback affect a users’ experience and how they engage with a system. Periodic feedback and system knowledge help users feel more in control, which supports better decision-making. The visibility of system status relates to communication and transparency, which are critical to user-system interactions.

Looking around for signs helps users manage tasks and time efficiently. For example, our phones and laptops display the remaining battery life to charge them when necessary. Similarly, email inboxes indicate how many unread emails lie in the mailbox and which ones are high priority.

Visibility of system status in UI is the first of Jakob Nielsen’s Ten Heuristics. Every UX designer follows these principles to ensure that their design is feasible, responsive, and user-friendly.

The system status should keep the user informed on what’s going on within the system with proper feedback at appropriate intervals. When users understand the current system status, they can determine the outcome of their prior interactions and the next steps.

Predictable interactions foster trust in the product and the brand, so UX designers prioritize the system status heuristic.

Definition

Visibility of system status defines how well the system state is conveyed to its users. This could include a dialog window, notification, an ‘appear and disappear’ text, and other mechanisms.

Why implement System Status in your design?

Knowledge is Power

Changing a system status with action requires knowledge about its current status. With this, you can overcome any gaps and decide what to do next to reach your goal. A lack of information always translates to a loss of control, resulting in diminishing trust in your design.

Staying in-the-know Means Better Control

Effectively displaying the system status encompasses proper communication with the user. After every system interaction, the user should be given a response from that system, informing them about the result and whether it is good, ineffective, or something that could impact other processes/tasks/outcomes.

Appropriate Feedback

Users need to understand if their interactions with the system were successful or not. Further actions can be taken based on the outcome of a previous one. The system should convey the outcome in a visible and comprehendible way.

Appropriate feedback is the most fundamental way of doing this. It keeps users informed of the current status and steers the interaction in the right direction. This saves effort and time when the user performs the correct actions instead of those, leading to confusion and error. Such feedback can include a change of color when the user clicks on a button or a progress indicator for a running background process. These feedback mechanisms show the user that the system is working, reduces uncertainty, and increases errors, such as clicking a button repeatedly due to a lack of system response.

Influence User Action

One key factor in displaying system status is predicting user behavior and guiding them to the next step. Doing this can influence the right actions while providing trust and security between your users and your product. On most e-commerce sites, communicating stock availability for a product influences their buying decision. When the stock is low, customers can immediately ensure they don’t lose a chance to purchase the product. Communicating if a user qualifies for free shipping or a specific deal can encourage additional purchases.

Communication Creates Trust

Understanding the system’s state helps users rely on the system to act as expected based on circumstances. The predictability of the interaction strengthens trust in the dynamics of the system and the brand.

Users should be informed about actions with consequences for mutual consensus required from a legal perspective. Any external event or time-based outcomes impacting the system state should be communicated clearly. For example, errors or interruptions during a system process need to be displayed effectively to the user for appropriate or remedial action.

Types of System Status Indicators in UX Design

While there are many creative system status indicators, here are some prominent ones used by UX designers today:

Progress Bar

This element is commonly used when a user uploads or downloads a file from an online or offline source.

A status window with a progress bar tells us how much progress has been completed or how much time is remaining by showing percentage (%), number file, or a bar. It also indicates process interruptions by an event or errors during the upload/download. The user can take corrective action at this juncture to restart or continue the process.

Here, the system provides enough feedback in a reasonable time after pressing the UPLOAD/DOWNLOAD button.