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I have a page with only one sentence and a link after a form submission but I don't know how to display them to look good and still kind of 'appealing' to the user.

The sentence is (translated): Data has been submitted

The link is (placeholder): send another form..
and it will link back to the empty form.

I can't think of a way to make it look good and userfriendly yet simple, currently I display them beneath each other:

enter image description here

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  • Can you show us a mock with the larger context? Let’s see your efforts
    – Mike M
    Sep 9, 2019 at 16:45
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    Is there a reason why this information can't be shown on the same page as the form (e.g. as a confirmation dialog)?
    – Michael Lai ♦
    Sep 10, 2019 at 0:26
  • @MichaelLai It's desired by the one I'm making this for, I was trying to explain better ways, but I have to do it like this.
    – ofmiceandmoon
    Sep 10, 2019 at 7:16
  • @MikeM It's really just a sentence and a link underneath it, it is that simple because I really have no idea how to place it since it has to be simple.
    – ofmiceandmoon
    Sep 10, 2019 at 7:27
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    You can take some inspirations from pages that have either a blank state (essentially little or no information) that generally tries to improve on the experience by creating a call-to-action (instead of letting the user click back or close the page), or error pages (e.g. 404 or 500) that usually tries to provide a picture or illustration to make the experience more friendly for the user.
    – Michael Lai ♦
    Sep 10, 2019 at 23:33

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Don't overthink it. Less is more.

Since this page has to exist based on stakeholder demands, make sure it communicates clearly and effectively.

If the main purpose of the page is to inform the user that the server received their data the message you have now is OK, but could leave room for doubt. State that the data was submitted successfully (or what they can do if it wasn't).

What is the context around this page? Is the user supposed to be happy their data was submitted? Or are they likely to see this page dozens of times per day so it will become merely a formality? The tone and design can match what you want the user to feel.

There is probably a good chance that a user would close the browser tab at this point if they were done, but having a link to start over is a good idea if it could be a reasonable use case. If you want to encourage people to use the link you could style it like a button or in a way that resembles how the form was initially started on a different page. The goal should be consistency in how new forms are started so that users can tell what their options are on this page at a glance.

Beyond that, there is room to add an element of delight to this page, but it depends heavily on the use case for your application. You probably don't want a happy animation if the form contained data about a deceased loved one, for example. Even in that case, you could still use your app logo or some elements in your color scheme to create a reassuring sense of trustworthiness.

No matter what you do, if the user can take one glance at the page and understand what happened, that's more important than it being fancy. It's likely they won't spend more than a fraction of a second actually looking at the page, so any extra stuff you add shouldn't detract from the message you are trying to convey: there's nothing else for them to do.

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  • Yes! The concept of trustworthiness derived from consistency of UI elements is huge in online applications. Ensuring that the user feels like their experience is continued to the end of the interaction reduces any worry about their data or privacy remaining securely where they put it.
    – sintax
    Sep 10, 2019 at 20:54
  • That's a great answer. Still I'm asking myself why it's necessary to tell the user it has been ' successfully' delivered, doesn't that imply it's likely that the transmission might (often?) fail? (which is really unlikely to happen)
    – ofmiceandmoon
    Sep 11, 2019 at 11:23
  • The user probably doesn't know how often things could fail. Just because they hit send on their end doesn't mean that the server received it on the other end. But it's not always about transmission failures: if they are used to systems with server-side validation they could be expecting a message like "data submitted, but rejected because you forgot something". The goal is to make it crystal clear that the data was received, it checks out, and there's nothing else for them to do.
    – Nathan Rabe
    Sep 11, 2019 at 12:59

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