The loading screen nobody thinks about.

Design · 4 min read

A client said something in a meeting that stuck with me. We were designing the flow for when the app generates content after the user finishes a setup wizard. There's a short wait. A few seconds while the back end does its thing. I'd put in a standard spinner. The client said, "Can we put a quote there instead?"

Not a progress bar. Not a "please wait" message. A quote. Something with personality. Something that makes the user feel like the app actually has a voice.

I said yes immediately. Because that's not a cosmetic change. That's a branding moment hiding in plain sight.

Dead time is brand time

Every app has waiting moments. A screen loading after login. A transition between sections. A pause while data syncs. Most apps fill those with a spinning circle and nothing else. That's fine from a technical standpoint. But from a brand standpoint, it's a missed opportunity. Those two or three seconds are guaranteed attention. The user is looking at the screen. They can't do anything else. They're just waiting.

If you fill that time with something that reflects your brand, you're building connection without asking for it. A short motivating line. A fun fact. A rotating set of tips. A quote from a real user. Something that makes the person smile, or nod, or feel like the app was built by humans who give a damn. That's culture. And you're building it in the gaps.

Research from Nielsen Norman Group shows that perceived wait time is as important as actual wait time. When users are given something engaging to look at during a loading state, they perceive the wait as shorter. You're literally making your app feel faster by putting words on a screen. That's a design win with almost zero development cost.

Personality lives in the small details

Most founders think about branding in terms of colours, logos, and fonts. Those matter. But the real personality of an app lives in the small stuff. The empty state when there's no data yet. The error message when something goes wrong. The confirmation screen after a task is completed. And yes, the loading screen. These are the moments that separate a product that feels human from one that feels like a database with a UI.

Slack does this brilliantly. Their loading messages are playful and unexpected. Duolingo turns waiting into a little performance from their owl. These aren't accidents. They're deliberate design choices that cost almost nothing but shape how the entire product feels. And they're the kind of thing users remember and talk about.

The client who suggested the quote understood this instinctively. They wanted the app to feel like talking to a friend who knows what they're doing. That vibe doesn't come from the feature list. It comes from moments like the loading screen. Moments that most people skip.

Add it to your list

If you're building an app, go through your flow and find every moment where the user waits. Login. Setup. Data loading. Transitions between major sections. Now ask yourself: what could I put there? It doesn't need to be clever. It just needs to be intentional. Even a simple "Almost there..." with your brand font and colour is better than a generic spinner.

This won't show up in your feature list. It won't be on your competitor comparison chart. But it's the kind of detail that makes someone say, "This app just feels nice." And that feeling is worth more than you'd think.

The loading screen nobody thinks about is the one your users see every single session. Make it count.

Sources
Progress Indicators Make a Slow System Less Insufferable (Nielsen Norman Group) - Engaging loading states reduce perceived wait time.
Aesthetic-Usability Effect (Laws of UX) - Users perceive aesthetically pleasing designs as more usable.

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