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NProgress: slim, site-wide progress bars

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Re: NProgress: slim, site-wide progress bars

#41

Post by Lifebot »

Justsignedup wrote: post #35
Lifebot wrote: post #24

Question for people using these progress bars: Are you actually doing the computation to accurately estimate the time it takes to complete the action indicated by the progress bar, or are you simply showing a progress bar as a visual cue to any loading in the same way people have been using spinning AJAX loaders?

compu-what-tion? You mean accurately predict how long it'll take an ajax request to load? Pfft, an exercise in futility, easier to just fake it, and probably just as accurate :)

That's what confuses me. AJAX loaders are ubiquitous on the web. They're small, easy to use, and a great visual cue. I'm not sure why you would want a percent-based loading bar unless you actually knew how long something would take to load. (e.g. see loading bars for downloads)

Using these super thin bars as a "dumb" loader seems like it would only confuse your users. It's like using an icon other than the floppy disk to convey saving.

Re: NProgress: slim, site-wide progress bars

#44

Post by shawnz »

Vendek wrote: post #29

I think the concept itself is ridiculous. It's 2013 guys, UI response should be instant. If it's not, you need to rethink what you're doing and ponder your life in general.

Are you implying that the author would have better spent his time redesigning HTTP rather than making this library? Because to me, that is even more ridiculous.

Re: NProgress: slim, site-wide progress bars

#45

Post by nc »

Vendek wrote: post #29

I think the concept itself is ridiculous. It's 2013 guys, UI response should be instant. If it's not, you need to rethink what you're doing and ponder your life in general.

You're right that we should all strive to build UI that responds instantly. Unfortunately sometimes, for reasons out of a designers control there might be a legitimate reason for a site to reach that level - for that, adding a subtle progress bar does help.

Think of it as a local optimisation before you reach a global one of instant UI.

Re: NProgress: slim, site-wide progress bars

#46

Post by bratsche »

It looks great, but why should we start promoting this as a UI pattern? This seems like a step in the wrong direction, and just because Youtube does it doesn't mean that others should too.

If you need a visual cue that something is loading on your page, throw up some kind of spinner or other animation that doesn't have a fixed beginning and end. Unless you think you know how to accurately measure the time that http request/response cycle is going to take (you don't).

Re: NProgress: slim, site-wide progress bars

#49

Post by speeq »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #2

This looks really nice. I think I've saw one of the browsers using that space at the top for it's loading bar which looks very similar (I'm not positive on this - it could have been a mobile browser). Edit: Readme says it was inspired by Medium and YouTube - http://www.usabilitypost.com/2013/08/19/new-ui-pattern-websi...

I think the Android stock browser has the same blue progress bar - or at least my phone running CyanogenMod has.

Re: NProgress: slim, site-wide progress bars

#50

Post by _greim_ »

bratsche wrote: post #46

It looks great, but why should we start promoting this as a UI pattern? This seems like a step in the wrong direction, and just because Youtube does it doesn't mean that others should too. If you need a visual cue that something is loading on your page, throw up some kind of spinner or other animation that doesn't have a fixed beginning and end. Unless you think you know how to accurately measure the time that http r…

There are at least some cases in modern client-side programming that you have access to progress information, and would therefore want a progress meter rather than a progress indicator. "Use spinners for everything" strikes me as short-sighted and reactionary advice.
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