Currently we don't have much in the way of empty states for a pre-search or no results found state.
Both of these situations can have really helpful and interactive experiences (Spelling correction, related queries, most popular searched terms, photo of the day, etc.) but to start I thought we could add easily add some static messaging and illustrations while we decide how much time we are able to invest into the more complex solutions.
For the pre-search state, a simple call to action around what you can search for and the sheer amount of files on Commons could be a good place to start. "Search more than 62,622,112 media files that are free to re-use" while possibly linking to the Commons stats page via the dynamic file count.
For the no results page, clearly stating there are no results found and giving general tips on how to reformulate their query to get results seems to be an okay starting point.
Images for illustrations can be found here. Reach out if we need these in a different file format, or in SVG.
During development, please test the following:
- Test this feature while logged in AND logged out
- Test this feature on at least one mobile browser
- Test that this feature works on the file page AND the Add Data step on UploadWizard (if applicable, some features only exist on one or the other)
