Related: placebo buttons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo_button
Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)
41–50 of 200 posts
Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does anyone have more information on the Houston airport case? Because I can imagine how moving the baggage claim further from the gates could result in actual efficiency improvements if it's closer to the exit.
Travel is all about mass human psychology management anyway - why do you get a meal on flights? Because people who've eaten are more docile, on average.
I feel like this phrasing makes it sound way more dystopian than it actually is. People who are tired or hungry are quicker to snap and notice the little discomforts of the plane. It's not that they're more docile, is that they're more content because it's easier to relax.
Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Connecting Fetching data Processing query Preparing for display
Most of those steps will go immediately, and one of them has the same problem the original issue had: it’ll sit on it for ages...
I designed and maintain a report-generating component and my system does the same thing. (Plus it is helpful as users can tell me where in the process it failed/hung) It doesn't matter how long each message sits on the screen, as long as it changes every so often. Animated, infinite progress bars also help if you don't/can't estimate ETA
Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)
#44> or help people get used to a new form of technology (like the artificial static that Skype plays during quiet moments in a conversation to convince users the call hasn’t been dropped)
Actually ever plain old telephones have intentionally imperfect speech transformers so you can hear your own echo and digital cellular phone networks do the same thing as Skype.
Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)
#45Reminds me of the old IE bar (not sure if it still does this), but it would crawl towards 100%, getting slower and slower as it approached the end, when waiting for a page to respond. In reality IE had no idea how much "progress" had been made by the server, if any.
They also had those progress bars when you stopped or restarted some services in an old version of Windows. They had no idea how long it would take, so they just made a logarithmic progress bar that became slower and slower, but never finished.
That trick only works once. As soon as you see that progress bar pattern a couple of times, you realise that it is fake, and it is infuriating.
Progress bars need to be honest. If you don't have any clue how long it'll take, show a spinner instead.
Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)
#46TurboTax being the worst offender: they use a GIF to simulate step completion when the whole thing has already been completed to make you feel like “they're doing hard work”…
Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)
#47The NYT example is interesting. During the US presidential election I interpreted the needle’s fluctuations (on what was a simulation of an analog gauge–a skeuomorphism) to indicate some form of uncertainty in the data. This would not be deceptive (at least according to my own mental model of how such a gauge would operate in real life). However, according to this article many interpreted the movement as the needle r…
I've never seen an analog gauge move like this. The pressure gauge on our heating doesn't do that, the speedometer on my car doesn't tremble, and neither do analog Volt meters as far as I recall.
Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Couldn't you have give also vague, but accurate information as well? Could you give me an example of what you consider "vague, but accurate information?"
"reticulating splines" I guess the lesson to be learnt here is that people are more understanding if you appear to be transparent but you don't have to ACTUALLY be transparent to get the affect.
Reminds me of the loading screen for The Sims (an obvious parody of the above mentioned tactic)
(You might want to mute it. The loading messages are at the bottom)
Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)
#49This article lumps a lot of techniques together that are fundamentally different. The ones that are actual deception are not benevolent, and the ones that are benevolent are not actually deception. Deception is leading someone to believe something that isn't true. If a deliberate delay is added to a UI to make it clear to the user that actual work is being done, this is not deception. You are leading the user to beli…
> If a deliberate delay is added to a UI to make it clear to the user that actual work is being done, this is not deception. It is deception. It's less obvious in case of a program, but imagine it when you're using some service in real life. You bring in a car for repairs, the mechanic says "right, I'm doing it now", goes to the other room and starts reading a newspaper. After some deliberate delay, fixes an obvious…
It's not deceptive - there's no commitment or understanding that the only thing he's doing when out of sight is work on your car. (And they don't bill based on how long they're gone - they bill based on how long they actually work on the car, in theory.)
On a computer, however, users generally assume that results are being delivered as fast as possible, even though in reality there's usually other things eating cycles.
Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
"reticulating splines" I guess the lesson to be learnt here is that people are more understanding if you appear to be transparent but you don't have to ACTUALLY be transparent to get the affect.
Reminds me of the loading screen for The Sims (an obvious parody of the above mentioned tactic) (You might want to mute it. The loading messages are at the bottom) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpMiI2QooKQ
Reticulating splines actually comes from SimCity 2000 and they then used the idea in The Sims later