10 Status Page Design Best Practices for Better Communication

A well-designed status page is one of the most powerful tools for building user trust. When something goes wrong (and it will), your status page becomes the primary communication channel between your team and your users.

Before setting up a status page, make sure you have proper uptime monitoring in place to detect issues quickly.

Here are 10 best practices for creating a status page that actually helps.

1. Keep It Simple and Scannable

Users visiting your status page want one thing: to know if your service is working. Make this immediately obvious.

Do:

• Use clear visual indicators (green/yellow/red)
• Show overall system status prominently
• Keep component names user-friendly

Don't:

• Overwhelm with technical details
• Hide the status behind clicks
• Use jargon users won't understand

A user should understand their service status within 2 seconds of loading the page.

2. Show What Users Actually Care About

List components based on what users interact with, not your internal architecture.

Good component names:

• Website
• Mobile App
• API
• User Authentication
• Payments & Billing
• Email Notifications

Bad component names:

• us-east-1-web-cluster-03
• PostgreSQL Primary
• Redis Cache Layer
• Kubernetes Ingress

Your users don't need to know about your infrastructure—they need to know if they can use your product.

3. Be Honest About Incidents

Trust is built through transparency, especially during outages.

Example of good incident communication:

Investigating website loading issues

Posted 10:15 AM

We're investigating reports of slow page loads and timeouts on our main website. Our team is actively looking into this issue.

Updated 10:30 AM

We've identified the cause as a database connection issue. We're working on restoring normal operations.

Updated 10:45 AM

The fix has been deployed and we're monitoring the situation. Page load times are returning to normal.

Resolved 11:00 AM

This incident has been resolved. Root cause was a connection pool exhaustion due to a traffic spike. We're implementing additional safeguards to prevent recurrence.

What makes this good:

• Regular updates (every 15 minutes)
• Honest about the cause
• Clear timeline
• Mentions preventive action

4. Update Frequently During Incidents

The worst thing you can do during an outage is go silent. Even if you don't have new information, let users know you're working on it.

Suggested update frequency:

• First 30 minutes: Every 10-15 minutes
• 30 minutes to 2 hours: Every 20-30 minutes
• Extended outages: At least hourly

A simple "Still investigating, no update yet" is better than silence.

5. Use Clear Severity Levels

Implement a consistent severity system:

Be consistent with these definitions across all incidents.

6. Offer Subscription Options

Let users subscribe to updates through their preferred channels:

• Email - For general subscribers
• RSS - For technical users and aggregators
• Webhook - For automated systems
• SMS - For critical alerts (if available)

The easier it is to subscribe, the fewer "Is it down?" support tickets you'll receive.

7. Include Historical Uptime Data

Show your track record to build confidence:

• Display uptime percentage for the last 90 days
• Show incident history
• Visualize uptime with daily/weekly indicators

This data shows potential customers your reliability and existing customers that issues are rare.

8. Make It Accessible

Your status page must be available when your main site isn't.

Best practices:

• Host on a separate domain or subdomain
• Use a different infrastructure than your main product
• Ensure it loads fast and works on mobile
• Keep dependencies minimal

If your status page goes down with your main site, it's not doing its job.

9. Plan for Maintenance Windows

Scheduled maintenance deserves proper communication:

Before maintenance:

• Announce at least 24-48 hours in advance
• Clearly state the date, time, and expected duration
• Explain what will be affected
• Include timezone (or multiple timezones)

During maintenance:

• Update the status page before starting
• Post updates if extending beyond the window
• Mark as completed when done

Example announcement:

Scheduled Maintenance - Database Upgrade

We will be performing a database upgrade on Saturday, January 15th from 2:00 AM to 4:00 AM UTC.

During this time, the website and API may be intermittently unavailable.

What's affected: Website, API, Mobile App What's not affected: Status Page

We apologize for any inconvenience.

10. Post-Incident Reports

After major incidents, publish a detailed post-mortem:

Include:

• Summary of what happened
• Timeline of events
• Root cause analysis
• Impact assessment
• Preventive measures taken

Example structure:

## Incident Report: API Outage - January 10, 2026
 
### Summary
Our API was unavailable for 47 minutes due to a misconfigured
deployment that caused all instances to fail health checks.
 
### Timeline
- 14:23 UTC - Deployment initiated
- 14:25 UTC - Health checks begin failing
- 14:27 UTC - Automated alerts triggered
- 14:32 UTC - Engineering team begins investigation
- 14:45 UTC - Root cause identified
- 14:58 UTC - Rollback completed
- 15:10 UTC - All systems verified operational
 
### Root Cause
A configuration change in the deployment removed a required
environment variable, causing the application to crash on startup.
 
### Preventive Measures
1. Added pre-deployment validation for required environment variables
2. Implemented canary deployments to catch issues earlier
3. Updated deployment checklist

This transparency turns a negative experience into a trust-building opportunity.

Bonus: Status Page Checklist

Use this checklist when setting up your status page:

• Status clearly visible within 2 seconds
• Components named in user-friendly language
• Subscription options available (email, RSS)
• Historical uptime data displayed
• Mobile-responsive design
• Hosted on separate infrastructure
• Custom domain configured
• Brand colors and logo applied
• Team knows the update process
• Template messages prepared for common issues

Create Your Status Page with Wakestack

Ready to build a status page that follows these best practices? Wakestack makes it easy:

• Beautiful, customizable design - Match your brand colors and logo
• Automatic updates - Connected to your monitors for real-time status
• Subscriber notifications - Email updates when incidents occur
• Custom domains - Host on your own subdomain (e.g., status.yourcompany.com)
• Incident management - Post updates directly from your dashboard

Our free plan includes 1 status page with all essential features. Get started today or see our documentation for a detailed setup guide.

Conclusion

A great status page is more than a technical requirement—it's a communication tool that builds trust with your users. By following these best practices, you'll transform your status page from a forgotten afterthought into a valuable asset.

Remember: Users don't expect perfection. They expect honesty and communication. Your status page is where you deliver both.

Need help choosing a monitoring tool? Check out our comparison of the best uptime monitoring tools.