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Loading states, the wait, designed to feel productive, not 'please be patient'.

Loading states are where most products feel slowest. A generic spinner doesn't tell the user anything; a skeleton screen tells them what's coming; a progress indicator tells them how long. We design loading states as part of the product, not as 'we'll figure it out at engineering time'.

What we build

  • Skeletons shaped like the actual content

    Loading skeletons mirror the structure of the content that's coming: rows, columns, image placeholders, text-line widths. The user knows what they're waiting for; the perceived latency drops.

  • Progress indicators where they earn it

    Operations that take measurable time (file uploads, exports, imports) get progress indicators with actual progress, not just indeterminate spinners. The user can decide whether to wait or come back.

  • Optimistic UI where the operation is safe

    Toggle a setting, send a message, add a comment, the UI assumes success and reconciles if the request fails. The user moves on; the failure case handles gracefully.

  • Stale-while-revalidate for repeat visits

    Second visit to a page shows the cached state instantly while the fresh data loads. Users see content; they don't see a spinner. Refresh happens invisibly.

  • Loading states designed alongside the screen

    Loading is part of the screen design, not retroactively added. Empty state, loading state, partial-data state, error state, all four shipped in the same design pass.

  • Reduced-motion respected

    Skeleton shimmer animations respect `prefers-reduced-motion` and downgrade to static skeletons. Spinners that do animate use easing tokens, not the default CSS that ignores user preferences.

Where this fits

  1. Your product feels slow even when the actual network time is reasonable, because the loading experience is a generic spinner.

  2. Your dashboard refreshes by emptying then refilling, and the perceived performance is taking the hit.

  3. Your team has loading states designed inconsistently across features because nobody owns the loading-state vocabulary.

Tech stack

  • After Effects
  • Lottie
  • motion/react
  • Skeleton Patterns

Want this for your team?

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