Product for Designers

Decision Cards

Make interface decisions you can defend in any design review.

State & feedback

Skeleton or Spinner

Do you know what’s coming, and how long is the wait?

Use Skeleton when

You know the layout that’s coming and the wait runs a few seconds. Holding the structure steady lets content land where the eye already is.

Signs it fits

  • Predictable layout: lists, cards, profiles
  • First load of a page or view
  • Roughly one to ten seconds
  • A layout jump would be jarring

Use Spinner when

The wait is short or the result has no predictable shape, like a submit or a search. Delay it by a few hundred milliseconds so fast responses never flash.

Signs it fits

  • Unknown result layout
  • An action in progress, not a page loading
  • Roughly one to three seconds
  • Small spaces, like inside a button
State & feedback
The rule

Match the loading treatment to the wait: nothing under a beat, structure for seconds, progress for longer.

From the lesson “Loading & perceived performance”

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9 of 42 cards

Product for Designers · Q1 2027

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