Feedback confirms state and action: success, progress, failure, partial saves. Without it, users repeat actions, lose trust, or assume the system froze.
Visibility of status
Show spinners with time expectations, disable buttons while submitting, optimistic UI only with rollback, and toast hierarchy (destructive vs info).
Error feedback
Pair errors with recovery: inline field messages, preserve form data, show request IDs for support. Never silent failure.
Delight vs distraction
Micro-celebrations help onboarding milestones; they hinder dense professional workflows. Calibrate to context and frequency.
Practices
- Skeleton screens for predictable layouts.
- Progress bars with steps or percentages.
- Haptic or sound only when meaningful defaults exist.
Common pitfalls
- Indeterminate spinners with no timeout messaging.
- Success toast stacking until unreadable.
- Green checkmarks on actions that only queued work.