I mentioned placeholders before in the context of Dropbox Paper…

…and I wanted to share a response by Niki Tonsky, because he had a great point about those Dropbox Paper placeholders that I didn’t consider:

For me it’s […] confusing placement. Like if somebody writes “Have a nice day” on a door instead of “Push” or “Pull”. I don’t mind seeing “Have a nice day” message somewhere neutral, in a place not occupied by any other function, but not where I expect very specific help.

I was reminded of Tonsky’s comment when I saw this at the airport yesterday:

I remember, eons ago, how impressed I was when one of the Chrome designers was telling me how all of these error pages were specifically designed to feel like liminal spaces and not like destinations. These were, in a way, placeholder content.

But “Press space to play” feels like a strange thing to put in here. (Previously, the message said “No internet” or “There is no Internet connection.”) I understand that this is Chrome’s popular mascot, but this is still an error page whose purpose is to tell me what’s wrong, rather than serve as an entry point to a minigame.

Also, just a few days ago, I just stumbled upon this fun example of a placeholder collapse – where a temporary text becomes permanent:

If you are curious, this is what it looks like if you don’t forget to set the message: