We deleted 29 of 55 captions on mobile

For a while our interface had a habit. Whenever a screen might be misunderstood, we added a line of small grey text under it. On the phone, one explained why the documents index shows rows instead of tiles. In Finance, another explained that totals are converted to the base currency. Under a database title sat "12 records · 3 views". Under the list of labels, a sentence spelled out what the numbers next to them count.

Each of those lines had a reason. Together they turned the product into something that talks about itself instead of just working.

In a review session, the product owner put it plainly:

This is clutter nobody can or ever will read. The interface should simply make sense on its own.

So we removed 29 of the 55 captions in the mobile layout, dropped the counter lines under page titles on desktop, and moved one explanation to the only place anyone looks for it.

The captions weren't an accident

The easy version of this story is that we tidied up the layout. That isn't what happened.

The captions were there because our own spec asked for them. When we designed the phone layout, we wrote a rule: whatever the phone can't do is named in words, not hidden. The small task counts under each date in the phone's Upcoming strip followed another rule: show the number even at zero, because a missing number would read as "nothing is known about this day". On screen, that meant a row of tiny zeros. And nine days before this review, while clearing a database header, we had decided in writing that the counters stay, because they change every day.

So deleting the text meant overturning three decisions, not nudging pixels. We rewrote each rule in the spec as a refusal, with the date and the reason. Had we only deleted the text, the next person doing a cleanup pass would read the old rule, spot the "missing" captions and put them back. By the spec, they would be right.

The new rule for the phone is short: the phone does less than the desktop, and it says so by not having the control, not with a paragraph under the list.

What we kept, and why

The rest stayed. They look the same, but they aren't explanations. They answer "what is happening on this screen right now", and removing them would create the very confusion we set out to remove. They come in three kinds:

• State. "Searching…", "The day is free", "No tasks in this project yet". Without them, a blank area could mean loading, broken or empty.
• Permission refusals. "Account settings are changed by the owner or an admin." This answers "why is there no button here?" Without it, the screen just looks broken.
• Warnings. "The old link will stop working." "This address contains the whole key, so it is the secret."

The last two kinds rest on a rule from an earlier review: text that protects you from a mistake is only removed together with a named replacement. Two lines slated for deletion turned out to be permission refusals and stayed. Three more mixed an explanation with a state, so we kept only the state.

Counters under titles

On desktop the same habit looked different: a subtitle with a count under the page heading. "12 records · 3 views" under a database, "2 databases" on the databases page, a count of events under Notifications, a count of finished tasks under Done, and an explanatory paragraph under API keys.

Those lines are gone on all five screens. The plan was upfront about the cost: some of these numbers had nowhere else to live. We had overestimated it. Done already shows a tile with the number of closed tasks one row below, so that count never left the screen. If one of these numbers ever comes back, it goes into the list itself, not under the title.

Two numbers, one label

The hardest caption to delete sat under the label list. It said the number counts all mentions: tasks, pages and canvases together.

It answered a real question. The same label shows two different numbers in Clusker: mentions in the label list, and open tasks next to a pinned label in the task menu. Delete the explanation without a replacement, and people are left with two numbers and nothing to tell them apart.

So the explanation moved to the number itself. Hover over it, and a hint tells you whether you're looking at mentions or open tasks. Our first plan put the hint on the whole menu row, but that would have repeated the row's own label, the same kind of noise we were removing. Now the answer sits where the question comes up, not in a paragraph read once in a lifetime.

What we took from it

• If text exists because a rule demands it, change the rule first. Otherwise the text comes back, and whoever brings it back is only doing their job.
• Captions come in two kinds: ones that explain how the product works, and ones that say what is going on right now. The first kind can almost always go. The second almost never.
• When a question is real, the answer belongs next to the thing it is about, not under the whole screen.