Reusing First-Use Empty-State Copy for a Filtered View
A user has 20 saved projects, but an overly narrow filter currently shows none of them. The screen displays: "No projects yet. Projects are where you organize tasks, files, and your team. [Create your first project]."
What's wrong with showing this specific copy here?
The correct answer is "It's first-use copy, and falsely implies the user never created anything."
This subject draws a hard line between two empty states that look similar but need completely different copy: a first-use empty state (a brand-new user, genuinely nothing here yet) is an onboarding opportunity, while a cleared/filtered empty state (content exists elsewhere, a filter is just hiding it right now) needs copy that doesn't imply the data is gone. Showing first-use copy here is "actively misleading" — the user has 20 real projects, and the screen is telling them to create their first one.
The distractors miss the actual issue: "the same empty-state copy always works everywhere" is precisely the mistake this subject calls out as a tell that a candidate hasn't thought about why a screen is empty; tone isn't the problem — the copy is friendly and clear, it's just answering the wrong situation; and the call-to-action button isn't the only broken part — the entire message misdiagnoses why the screen is empty, not just its final line.
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