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Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)

theatlantic.com

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Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)

#161

Post by seanwilson »

lultimouomo wrote: post #159
seanwilson wrote: post #158

More than a few times, I've had an app where an "in progress" dialog would pop-up and disappear for an operation that could take anywhere from 0.1 seconds to a few seconds to complete. If it happens to complete quickly, you don't get to see the dialog text and it can be confusing if the operation succeeded or not. A solution is to force the dialog to be shown for a minimum of a couple of seconds. It's a weird trade-o…

Or you can delay showing the dialog for half a second, during which you gather progress data and estimate for how long the dialog would be shown. If it's less than a couple of seconds, don't show it at all.

Yep, that's another way. You still need to give some kind of feedback though if the dialog isn't shown otherwise it'll get perceived as lag. Also, say you wait 0.5 seconds until the dialog has to be shown but the operation takes 0.51 seconds: once the dialog appears you should still probably have it displayed for a minimum amount of time otherwise it looks like a glitch.

Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)

#162

Post by Bromskloss »

pletnes wrote: post #139
emodendroket wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why every thread about Web applications needs someone to tell me that technically HTML was just designed to be a document format. OK, great, now it isn't just that.

That’s true, but I can mention several online stores that do this. Even on a good network the site remains blank for seconds at times. If they at least served me a logo I’d know the site wasn’t dead!

> I can mention several online stores that do this

I would like to hear which ones they are, that I may try them.

Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)

#163

Post by Bromskloss »

mrisoli wrote: post #33
diplomatpuppy wrote: post #11

I had a report in Microsoft Access that took about five minutes to run - and the users hated it. I had the application throw up a fake dialog with fake messages about "Collating data, Cross checking, Sorting" and other such nonsense. The report now took eight minutes to run because I had to abuse the "On Timer" event for it to work. The users were delighted with the improvement.

I remember reading long ago about how they did something similar at an airport(Dallas IIRC). Basically, people complained about baggage claim taking too long, so they just moved the baggage claim area to the other side of the airport, so it took longer for passengers to reach it, by the time they did, their bags would already be there, so the complaints stopped.

I think even the passengers' reaction might make sense here. Standing around at the baggage claim and observing that no baggage arrives makes you worry that there might be some serious error that will make things take a very long time.

Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)

#164

Post by kaslai »

dingo_bat wrote: post #78
jakobegger wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The speedometer on your car is almost certainly a digital system driving a needle. Unless you have a 40 year old car or something. So you shouldn't expect that to indicate how analog meters work.

My friend has a car manufactured in 1982 and the speedometer is practically useless below 30mph because of how bad the tremble is. He can be driving at a fairly constant 25mph and the needle will fluctuate rapidly between 30mph and bottomed out. Given the fact that the gauge bottoms out at 10mph, that behavior is probably by design.

Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)

#165

Post by herbstein »

flyGuyOnTheSly wrote: post #137
ploxiln wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're happy until 30 minutes later when the progress bar is still getting asymptotically closer to the end, and you come to suspect that the only thing that didn't crash was the progress bar.

>when the progress bar is still getting asymptotically closer to the end That, my friend, is an impressive command of the English language. Thank you for teaching me the word asymptotically! [0] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/asymptotically

I think most people that have done a CS degree would at least know the word. My cs101 class talked about asymptotic notation.

Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)

#166

Post by rayalez »

diplomatpuppy wrote: post #11

I had a report in Microsoft Access that took about five minutes to run - and the users hated it. I had the application throw up a fake dialog with fake messages about "Collating data, Cross checking, Sorting" and other such nonsense. The report now took eight minutes to run because I had to abuse the "On Timer" event for it to work. The users were delighted with the improvement.

Sounds like a placebo button:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo_button

They add fake "close doors" buttons to the elevators, that arent connected to anything, but make people feel they have agency and it makes waiting for doors to close less frustrating.

Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)

#167

Post by yason »

A funny counter observation is that because computer user interfaces have got progressively slower and slower (as it typically takes a "long" time to open documents or process something) people don't necessarily trust the right thing did happen if things actually go fast even if it's possible. So, in a perverse sense "slower is better" because people have accustomed to computers being slow.

Much like jerky, twitching, stuttering video playback used to be cool—to the extent of intentional frame drops introduced in things like music videos—because that looked "computerised". Game animations and video playback on DOS/Windows at the time were stuttering or had visible shear because waiting for vsync was apparently harder than in earlier hardware and everyone tried to avoid all that; yet it was fashionable in media that could've run smooth.

Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)

#168

Post by dsign »

jonplackett wrote: post #112

If you’ve ever made a chatbot you have to do this. Add in a fake few seconds delay so it seems like it’s considering what you said in its reply. Replying instantly makes you feel like you’re being railroaded and ignored.

I recently contacted the sales chat of a company and they were typing too fast. The guy reached out by email later saying he was not a bot, but to this day, I'm not 100% sure.

Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)

#169

Post by sk5t »

herbstein wrote: post #165
flyGuyOnTheSly wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>when the progress bar is still getting asymptotically closer to the end That, my friend, is an impressive command of the English language. Thank you for teaching me the word asymptotically! [0] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/asymptotically

I think most people that have done a CS degree would at least know the word. My cs101 class talked about asymptotic notation.

Not CS but any study of limits in math, perhaps with differential equations. And it’s a useful term generally, much more likely to come up in conversation than “subtrahend” or “mantissa” but not nearly as much as “tangent.”

Re: Why some apps use fake progress bars (2017)

#170

Post by afandian »

nazgul17 wrote: post #85
Spivak wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this really isn't deception but actually solving the problem which is that passengers didn't want to stand around.

In particular, people don't like to feel they are wasting time. Walking being a "necessary" step, doesn't feel like a waste of time.

It also distributes people through the airport to avoid localized crowding.
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