New users open your app and see nothing useful
An empty canvas is intimidating. Pre-filled templates show users what's possible and get them creating immediately.
When to use
Your product involves creating something and new users face a blank-canvas problem.
Hypothesis template
If we replace empty states with fill in: N starter templates, more users will create their first fill in: thing because starting from something is easier than starting from nothing.
Method
The problem: New users open your app and see a blank screen. They don't know where to start. They leave.
What Canva does: Instead of a blank canvas, shows thousands of templates organized by use case. "Making a presentation? Start here." Users click, customize, and have something beautiful in minutes.
Why blank states kill activation:
- "What do I do?" → overwhelm → leave
- Users don't know what's possible yet
- Creating from scratch requires expertise they may not have
- The gap between "nothing" and "something" feels too big
How to fix it:
- Identify your key empty states (new account, new project, new document)
- For each: what would a successful user create?
- Build 5-10 templates for the most common use cases
- Show them prominently—not buried in a menu
- Make templates customizable (not locked)
- Label them by outcome: "Social media post" not "Template #3"
The psychology:
- Starting from 80% done feels easy
- Templates teach by example (users learn your product by editing)
- Quick win = dopamine = comes back tomorrow
Key insight: Your product should show its value before the user does any work.
Success metrics
- •% of users who create first item
- •Time to first creation
- •Template usage rate
- •7-day retention of template users vs non-template users
Prerequisites
- Understanding of common use cases
- Ability to create templates
- UI to display templates prominently
Common pitfalls
- •Templates that don't look good
- •Too many templates (overwhelming)
- •Templates that are too rigid to customize
- •Not updating templates based on what's popular
Source: Canva. Templates instead of blank canvas drives activation.
Suggested ICE scores
Ready to run this experiment?
Sign up free to use this playbook with step-by-step guidance and track your results.