Status indicators
Status indicators are an important method of communicating severity level information to users. Different shapes and colors enable users to quickly assess and identify status and respond accordingly.
Overview
An indicator highlights a page element and informs the user of something that needs the user’s attention. Often, the indicator will denote that there has been a change to a particular item. They are frequently used to signal validation errors or notifications, changes, or updates. They can also be used on their own. Indicators are visual cues intended to attract the user’s attention to a piece of content or UI element that is dynamic in nature.
In this pattern we explore:
- Choosing the best status indicators for your context
- The different status indicator variants
- What elements they are comprised of and how each element works to communicate
Choosing for context
In the UI landscape, examples of status indicators are everywhere. However this pattern will focus less on the components or patterns in which indicators tend to appear (notifications, inline errors, dashboards, and so on) and more on the urgency of the communication.
For ease of use, status indicators can be classified into levels of severity such as high, medium, and low attention. See more information on choosing between alias icons and outlined versus filled icons in the Status shapes section below.
Consolidated statuses
When multiple statuses are consolidated, use the highest-attention color to represent the group. For example, if the statuses of underlying components are green, yellow, and red, the consolidated indicator is red.
Cognitive load
Don’t use status indicators when no user action is necessary and status information is not important enough to highlight. Use plain text instead to avoid the overuse of status indicators. While we won’t go as far a prescribing a maximum number, more than 5 or 6 indicators begins to tax a user and makes it difficult to focus.
High attention
These indicators signal that user action is needed immediately—that is, there is an irregularity in the system, something malfunctioned, or a user needs to confirm a potentially destructive action. Some examples include alerts, exceptions, confirmations, and errors.
Used for: failed processes, emergencies, urgent alerts
Used for: warnings, errors, alerts, failure
Used for: incorrect usage, unavailability, cancellation
Used for: major caution, serious situations, critical instability
Used for: minor caution, prevention, instability
Medium attention
Use these indicators when no immediate user action is required or to provide feedback to a user action. Some examples include acknowledgements and progress indicators.
Used for: experimental work, outliers
Used for: success, completion, stability, active states
Used for: success, completion
Used for: unfinished, running processes
Used for: incomplete tasks
Used for: upstarted tasks or disabled processes
Used for: indefinite holds
Low attention
Use these indicators when something is ready to view, for system feedback, or to signify that something has changed since the last interaction. Some examples include tooltip triggers that offer explanatory or added information, and passive notifications.