People perform certain actions in custom apps, and we want to make sure they know when those actions have been completed. We do not want a lot of uncertainty when people are using these tools. This is where our colors, branding, and the way buttons are displayed come into play. With custom apps, as much as we’d like to have larger pop-ups that clearly say, “Success,” instead of the small confirmation messages we often see, we have to be careful not to overdo it. We can use small, subtle signs to show that something has been completed. It could be a button changing state, an option becoming unavailable, a section graying out, or another visual cue that confirms the action was successful.
We also want confirmation through notifications or emails where appropriate, so users know that something has happened. As I said, we don’t want these confirmations everywhere, but we do need those subtle indicators that reassure people an action has been completed successfully. If an action wasn’t successful, we also have to communicate that clearly. We need to pay attention to the copy in our success and error messages so users immediately understand what happened. After that, we should make the next steps obvious. Do they need to be redirected somewhere? Do they need to complete another action? Do they need to retrieve something? Be very clear about all of these things.