Comment by vortico

This is a horribly researched article. Progress bars are not benevolent deception, they are deception by incorrect choice of UI elements.

>Mask system hiccups to smooth out a user’s experience (like when a progress bar grows at a consistent rate, even if the process it’s visualizing is stuttering

This is malicious deception. The only one being benefited is the developer when the users incorrectly think your software is smooth but is in fact not. If the software hiccups, the users need to know this to better understand the system they are working with. Your users are left ignorant, which is malicious.

>The word “deception” has a negative connotation

That is because it is negative. A user exploring the UI of your software is much like a physicist researching the unknown laws of the universe. A physicist never benefits from ignorance, so don't find ways to make your users more ignorant about your system.

>Despite its complexity, this step was nearly instantaneous in the game’s first iteration. But the speed confused people. “Their reaction was, ‘Wow, was that it?’” Adar said. “That was sort of a bummer for us.”

That's why you should rarely listen to user feedback if you don't fully understand their experience. In this case the explanation is simple: users expect your system to be worse/slower than what it is, so when it exceeds their expectations, they are surprised and report this to you, but you've just set a new expectation that your software is faster than others out there, and then destroying it with an update.

>The security theater appeared to work

Already mentioned in this HN thread, but wrong term here.

>The needle only wandered within the margin of error of the forecast at any given moment, Aisch explained

Then put an error bar around the needle for crying out loud. Designers need to stop assuming their users are stupid---this is an annoying trend. If you're over the voting age, you can understand the concept of error bars. If the "needle jittered less and less", then the error bars are already known, so the designers actively chose the "lying" method to the truthful and more informative method.

>artificial static that Skype plays during quiet moments in a conversation to convince users the call hasn’t been dropped

This one is fine and can be grouped in the "skeuomorphism enhancements" category.