Comment by tyingq
7 years ago
It's visual "proof" that the app itself isn't hung. I agree that you would have to be careful with the text, but progress bars do have some value.
7 years ago
It's visual "proof" that the app itself isn't hung. I agree that you would have to be careful with the text, but progress bars do have some value.
No it's not. It doesn't prove anything, and there are ways you can prove it that don't deceive the user, like a status message at the end or a change of button text. The value of a progress bar is for the user to see the state of a background process, not to see whether it suceeded. Don't assume that all your users, or even a small proportion, think this.
I'm not suggesting deceiving users. I'm suggesting a spinner isn't much proof of the app not being hung. Some kind of updating status or progress is, assuming it's not complete bullshit. I can see cases where "slightly bullshit, but somewhat true" is better than just a spinner or unresponsive UI.
>Some kind of updating status or progress is, assuming it's not complete bullshit
This is where we agree. If the progress bar is bullshit (like the IE6 loading bar), then it means just as much to most users as a spinning beach ball, but slightly more insulting to the users' intelligence/experience.
I disagree. There's a difference between a progress bar that could just be a spinner or no progress bar at all because it's fake. And a progress bar that attempts to communicate real progress.
For me, a spinner doesn't say much, because it could just be something like an animated gif, while the app itself is hopelessly out to lunch. Knowing that at least one thread is working in a long running task is calming.