The Template Gallery
Let new users start from a finished example instead of an empty document.
The problem it solves
Open ended tools ask new users to invent both the content and the structure at once. Most people cannot do that on first contact and leave the blank canvas untouched.
A template does two jobs. It removes the blank page, and it teaches the product's conventions by example. A user who opens a project template sees how sections, dependencies and custom fields are meant to fit together, which no description achieves as quickly.
The failure mode is not the templates. It is the gallery. A gallery of four hundred templates replaces one hard decision with a harder one, and the user who was stuck on a blank page is now stuck on a grid.
What separates a useful gallery from a catalogue
- Few, by role
- Show six to eight, chosen by what the user told you about their work. Put everything else behind a search field for people who go looking.
- Named by job
- Weekly team check in beats Meeting Template 3. The name should let someone recognise their own situation without opening anything.
- Previewable
- Let the user see the structure before committing. Choosing blind means most first choices are wrong, and a wrong choice costs more than a blank page.
- Escapable
- A template the user regrets must be deletable in one action, with an obvious route to starting empty.
A second hazard is worth naming. Templates built by a marketing team to look good in a screenshot are usually over structured. Fourteen columns, five automations and a colour system. A real user then has to strip it down before they can use it, which is more work than building up from nothing.
Worked example
Hypothetical: two gallery sizes
A team shows every new account the same grid of sixty templates. In this illustration, a small share pick anything and the rest scroll and leave. They cut the first screen to six templates chosen from the role question asked at signup, with the full set behind a link. Same templates, one decision instead of sixty.
- Cap the first view at eight options and use the signup answers to choose them.
- Name templates after the job, not after the feature.
- Keep each one small enough that a user can understand it in one screen.
- Always show Start from blank as a real, equally visible option.
- Track which templates get used a week later, not which ones get clicked.
That last measurement matters. A template with a high pick rate and no second week usage is an attractive picture that did not match anyone's work, and it is quietly costing you the users who chose it.
When it fits
- Open ended tools where the user has to invent the structure as well as the content.
- Products with recognisable recurring use cases, such as retrospectives, invoices or content calendars.
- Situations where you already know the user's role or industry and can narrow the set.
- Tools whose conventions are hard to describe but obvious once seen in a worked example.
When it backfires
- When the gallery is large, turning a blank page problem into a choice problem.
- When templates are built to look impressive, so users spend their first session deleting structure they did not ask for.
- When a chosen template is hard to undo, making a first guess feel like a commitment.
- When Start from blank is hidden or visually demoted, which traps people who know exactly what they want.
Products using it
Notion
Template picking is offered when creating a page, with an option to start empty in the same place.
Canva
Design creation starts from a format and a template grid rather than an empty artboard.
Airtable
New bases can be created from templates that arrive with fields, views and example rows already configured.
The psychology under it
The takeaway
Show eight templates chosen from what the user already told you, name them after jobs, and keep the blank option equally visible.
Finished the teardown? Bank it and the day counts toward your run.