Many times in index pages we need to show a message that there are no results to view. Usually as a results of a search, as in the example of Iconly. If you search for an icon on the top search bar, and no results our returned, the following message is shown.
![]()
Of course we could just return a phrase saying, "No results found", but that would be like we've left the users with no choice, and a bit poor design wise. With the improved notice, and the button to Clear Search (it could also be written Search again or Search for something else), I feel the user experience improves a lot. Also the baby face adds to the cuteness.
This reminds me a bit of the 404 pages, which nowdays are designed wonderfully.
The code
Let's code the notice we see in Iconly. We use Bootstrap 4 with a bit of custom CSS:
<div class="jumbotron text-center">
<i class="iconly-baby2 mr-05 font-lg"></i>
<h3 class="mb-4">Can't find that icon ...</h3>
<%= link_to 'Clear search', projects_path, class: 'btn btn-lg btn-primary' %>
</div>
We wrap the message inside a jumbotron element, which is a CSS class provided by Bootstrap. The iconly-baby2 class is created by Iconly as part of the web font generator. We want to show it with a big font size, so we create font-lg, to keep it in line with the btn- classes:
.font-lg {
font-size: 4rem;
}
Another example of these sort of messages is used on Github's Notifications page, when there are no notifications to view.

And now the joke:
A horse walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Hey.” The horse says, “You read my mind, buddy.”
Have a funny day!
Banner image designed by Freepik