The menu shows the whole product, and what does not exist cannot be clicked

There are two ways to treat what a product does not do yet. The usual one is to hide it: the menu only shows what works, and the client finds out about the rest when somebody mentions it on a call. The other is to show it and not let it be clicked.

We do the second. The dashboard menu shows the whole product, and what does not exist is in plain sight and disabled. No screen that loads and turns up empty, no button that leads to an error.

What it buys is trust in the parts that do work. When a product is explicit about its gaps, what is not marked as a gap gets believed — and that is the only way “this is under construction” means anything.