We have a product with multiple different features, and at this point in time we must postpone about 3/7 of the features on a page until further development. 2 of them are somewhat significant features, however all 7 features are currently listed on the page as different buttons. Currently, when you select a button for a disabled feature, it leads to a "coming soon" page where users can enter their email for updates. All the buttons, however, look the same as in you can't tell which feature is disabled or not until you tap it. Is it good or bad ux practice to leave the buttons as is (look active)? I can see users being frustrated at tapping a feature only to have it be unavailable, but also we want to advertise that these features will be available soon so we can't remove them from the design. I thought about greying out the buttons, but it was rejected because it will make the app look unfinished since almost half the buttons would be greyed out. Any suggestions on a simple way to indicate features are coming soon?
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Your hunch is right. Separate the existing feature buttons, and make a Coming Soon section that users can sign up for updates. I know asking a lot but it'd be real nice to have expected release dates.– bloodyKnucklesNov 7, 2022 at 18:16
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"...make the app look unfinished..." Your app is unfinished. Way better to be transparent than lead people hopelessly down dead end links.– bloodyKnucklesNov 7, 2022 at 18:19
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@bloodyKnuckles if it was up to me, I would make them disabled but higher ups don't like that solution and our release date is approaching soon. I guess there's not many solutions around this issue that's gunna be preferable for everyone.– Gene LeeNov 7, 2022 at 18:40
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You may be able to convince the-powers-that-be it's a bad idea by doing some user testing and document users' confusion and frustration resulting in fewer sign ups—compared to being transparent.– bloodyKnucklesNov 7, 2022 at 18:45
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1 Answer
You are right that clicking a button and unexpectedly being dropped on a "coming soon" page will be very frustrating—especially if it happens with the majority of your features. It's difficult to provide a recommendation without seeing the design, but I think there are a couple ways you can mitigate that depending on your design:
- Add a label/tag saying "Coming soon!" next to the name of the feature
- Change the button text so it says "Notify me" or something like that (this only works if the text is currently something like "Learn more."
- If this part of the page is literally just a group of buttons labeled with feature names (with no additional text), separate them into two groups and add headings to distinguish current features from features that will be available soon
- I think a last resort—if you can't get your internal stakeholders to align on another option—would be to make the buttons of future features outlined buttons. This will make the future features appear different. I wouldn't disable the buttons completely because you still want to give users a way to get to the page where they can subscribe for updates.
