What message should we use with under construction page?

Question

I have problem showing the message to the user on my under construction page. I want to know which is the best practice to write the message for those under construction web page.

Answer 1

Web activity tends to convey a sense of immediateness, like for example looking for a word in a dictionary or purchasing tickets for a show to be performed later today.
Users rush through the pages swiftly, thanks to the ever growing Internet connections bandwith, the faster hardware, and last but not least, our work as usability enhancers.
Users get to the Internet with a purpose, a goal, usually in a rush (as of these modern times).
In such a context, lulling the users in order to take them to a dead end page just to tell them that sometime in the future a feature will be available, seems to me as a lack of respect to their time.
Also, I think it might generate a negative reaction, like, this site has a fake page while the other one (where I was able to fulfill my goal) is real; in the future I won't waste my time and go straight into the latter.
So, if I really had to communicate that I don't have a feature available (which I plan to implement really soon) I'd avoid taking the users to dead end.
To achieve this I'd set the link in the navigation artifacts, in its place (in order to make clear its importance), but some how dimmed (like, in lighter gray letters) and on click wouldn't take the users out of the current page but instead I'd pop an overlay promising the feature, including the reasons why it's going to be much better than those competitive sites.
I'd use a pyramidal organization of the info, allowing the most harried users to leave (albeit already informed) is about three seconds, and satisfying the will to know of the very interested in a smaller font.

Answer 2

I agree with Bart from the comments, albeit it depends of course.

Let's put this into context: The user has a problem. A need, a goal to fulfill, anything. Let's say she wants to cook dinner, and looks for recipes.

Somehow she reaches your site, and let's say your site is about recipes. A site about recipes under construction.

The only problem: she doesn't need recipes in general, she needs the recipe for this evening!

The situation is different per se, if you want to advertise a cool new startup idea on FaceBook, and you want to gain attention. Then it's usually an e-mail or fb-login collecting thing.

Most of the sites under construction never see the day of light at the end unfortunately. This creates a bad feeling with users who visit the site regularly to check if it has already started.

Therefore I usually tell people to keep silent about your project until it's in gears, provide ways of notification (a simple facebook page or a mailing list will do), and offer a showcase on what is done by now.

Answer 3

1. Provide a brief what that page will contain when it is done.

2. Providing a timer (Something like This page will be available in 2 Days 6 Hours 22 Minutes) showing approximately how much time it will require to finish.

3. Ask the user to provide his name/e-mail, to notify him as soon as the page is available (In case he is very interested in the content that will be available on this page)

Answer 4

I disagree with @Benny Skogberg conclusion: in construction pages can be sometimes used in order to notify the user that there is a missing page or feature but that it will come in a while.

By example, it allows you to keep a consistent navigation menu, as all the links will already be present, and the user won't have new menus coming from nowhere without any warning.

That said, you should always warn the user that the page is under construction before they click - like a shaded link with a little tooltip instead of a plain one.

About the under construction message itself, I think it should tease the user, explaining which features the page will grant, what they will be able to do here, maybe the release date if you know it, and why not a screenshot of your design if you have any. A simple "be back soon, we're working on it" is basically useless, as there is no useful piece of information delivered to the user.

Answer 5

Depends upon the context of site, like whether it is a personal blog or a start-up portal.

A Coming soon message , with at least some graphics , at least the logo. This will add more credibility.

Also, if your site/product has a fixed launch date, you can go ahead and add a nice count down timer .

Additionally, If there's a broadcast account for your upcoming company/website/product, let people share the news, find you on Facebook etc and receive tweets/blog-feeds about how things are coming up.

This might go one step further: Accepting email addresses with something like "Let us inform you when we roll out" . But it will be useful only if there is some kind of fan following for your company's products, for example a new movie, or game, or a sub-network website.

All the best for your endeavor.

Answer 6

I believe this article about designing "coming soon" pages of Smashing Magazine will be quite helpful

Answer 7

When the web was in its dawn in the early 1990's there where a lot of different animated gifs letting the user know the page visited was "under construction". There are numerous examples on any image search, such as this one:

Since then, the web have evolved and changed a lot. The under construction sign isn't used and hasn't been used since the late 1990's, for two main reasons:

1. All web pages are in a sense under construction. Static, non-changing content is a thing of the past. Today almost all web sites edit their content unless it's in some kind of archive (News Archive, Software release version archive,...). Take a look at any page on Wikipedia and use the edit tab to see how often pages are edited. That's also the reason for web crawlers to visit web pages again and again and again.
2. When there is a publishing tool available, web editors make their web page before they publish it. These option is available in Content Management Systems (CMS), where you can finish your work, having a review process (if needed) before release to the public.

That's why under construction signs shouldn't be used. Wait until you have version 1.0 before you publish the page.