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PleaseWait.js – Show your users a beautiful loading page while your app loads

pathgather.github.io

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Re: PleaseWait.js – Show your users a beautiful loading page while your app loads

#31

Post by ddoolin »

jobposter1234 wrote: post #28
ddoolin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the AMC theatres pre-show messages where it says something along the lines of "Thank you for being _absolutely amazing!_" Makes me cringe SO HARD every time. Why are we telling people they're amazing for existing? Haven't we identified the issue with much of today's youth is that their egos were often overinflated by their parents, teachers, etc, leading to problems of entitlement and whatever else that entails?

I suspect it's because people feel better about themselves and have a happier outlook when they receive compliments. These warm fuzzies are associated with the product / setting, positively affecting people's opinion of the service. I'm not sure why you're confused -- is it because things aren't the way that you think they should be? To me, the explanation above is pretty concise and fits the situation neatly.

I guess I wasn't seriously questioning the reasons why they would do it. It does make sense but isn't there some point where complimenting your customers to make them feel all warm could go "too far"? I'm pretty laid back with not very high expectations of customer service (not a pessimistic person, just easy to please) and it just comes off as rather excessive, at least with the way it's presented.

This probably comes off as looking the gift horse in the mouth but at some point it does come off as excessive, like when I get bum rushed to be helped the second I look at a product in a department store.

Re: PleaseWait.js – Show your users a beautiful loading page while your app loads

#32

Post by Stratoscope »

fiatjaf wrote: post #14

"You look nice today". This habit of saying horribly false compliments to the user is an awful trend that is affecting programmers everywhere. See https://www.npmjs.com/login , for example.

Wow, I never looked at that page before. It's creepy from the top:

  you look lovely today, btw.
to the bottom:

  you need help
Well, which is it? Do I look lovely, or do I need help? What possible business is it of yours, dear npm? And what about the person who just suffered a facial injury and is very aware of how unlovely they look at the moment?

At least Slack rotates through a few different sayings that tend to be goofy instead of creepy - and you can change them.

This stuff has been around for a long time, it's just cheekier now. Ever install a Windows app and the last setup page says, "Congratulations! You have successfully installed $APP." Congratulations? For what? You congratulate people for an achievement. Are you saying that it was an achievement on my part to successfully install your app? Was the more likely outcome that I would fail to install it? :-0

Re: PleaseWait.js – Show your users a beautiful loading page while your app loads

#33

Post by forrestthewoods »

No. It's not beautiful. Stop saying that! That word is so overused in software that it is no devoid of all meaning.

It's a loading screen. It's perhaps even a nice looking loading screen. Well, it's not ugly. It is missing a lot of functionality though. But it's less rage inducing than the spinning pin wheel so that's good I guess.

2015 would be a better year if we all agreed to stop using the word beautiful with respect to any and all things digital.

Re: PleaseWait.js – Show your users a beautiful loading page while your app loads

#34

Post by bvanslyke »

fiatjaf wrote: post #14

"You look nice today". This habit of saying horribly false compliments to the user is an awful trend that is affecting programmers everywhere. See https://www.npmjs.com/login , for example.

If they're gonna do that they should at least activate your webcam for a second.

Re: PleaseWait.js – Show your users a beautiful loading page while your app loads

#35

Post by detaro »

zaidf wrote: post #15
mindcrime wrote: post #2

Is it just me, or does anybody else think that it's a problem that the world even needs this in the first place? I expect splash screens and slightly longer load times from desktop apps... if I click on a link to something in my browser, not so much. TBH, if a page/app takes more than a second or two to load, I assume there's something wrong with it (or my net connection).

It's very common for certain features in enterprise apps to take 5-30seconds to load. Most enterprise report generation features require a few seconds for a lot of the queries, for example.

Shouldn't these then show loading indicators for the data areas, and not the entire page? (covering up menus etc., where the user might abort the process or change parameters)

Re: PleaseWait.js – Show your users a beautiful loading page while your app loads

#37

Post by jalpino »

masukomi wrote: post #10
jhdavids8 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For SPAs, something like this can be quite useful for a few reasons: branding (see Slack's and Asana's cool examples), having in-app authentication on any page (see the login form example on the demo page), and yes, showing some sort of notification while a good bit of data loads in the background. For the majority of sites, I agree this may be overkill, but if you have a SPA that needs to load a good bit of data on…

You missed the point. If you "need to load a good bit of data on the user's first use" you've already failed. I've been coding professionally for about 20 years now and the only reason i've ever seen for loading a bit of data on the initial hit, is that the developer didn't spend the time to think about how to load the necessary pieces incrementally, as they were needed by the user . Instead they designed a system th…

I tend to disagree with the statement that you've already failed if you decide to eagerly load resources before they are used or needed. Take queue from Google or others who pre-fetch resources based on anticipated usage. In the world of SPAs and client-side heavy apps, combining resources into a single or logically grouped set of resources is common practice to cut down on the amount of overhead that many http(s) calls impose.

Also, the intended use of PleaseWait.js doesn't have to be used to stall while client side resources are brought down. This concept could easily be used for long running, server side processing.

Re: PleaseWait.js – Show your users a beautiful loading page while your app loads

#38

Post by pdabbadabba »

jhdavids8 wrote: post #23
mQu wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's missing the point - just like other comments said - if you need this you're doing it wrong. I sure was guilty of big sites just as much as the next guy. It just saddens me that insted of promoting what we've learned it the past years and applying to current projects we're doomed to repeat bad UX from before.

Maybe you're right, but I certainly think there are some valid cases where this could be useful. I'm not saying use it in every project, or use it as a workaround to a larger architectural issue, but if you have a single page app that does not render templates on the server, showing something like this while you make a few AJAX calls and compile the data returned into your client-side templates isn't the worse thing…

I for one think this is exactly the right attitude.

Sure. Maybe it's literally always a Bad Thing to show a loading screen. But plenty of apps have made that choice, for some reason or other. Maybe the developers are incompetent, or maybe they have a combination of technical and resource constraints that make this the best choice for them. It doesn't matter. At least this loading page can improve users' experiences with apps that have, for whatever reason, made the choice to go this route.

Re: PleaseWait.js – Show your users a beautiful loading page while your app loads

#39

Post by xatnys »

straws wrote: post #29
nostromo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to be dogmatic, there are valid reasons to use these. For example, we have some heavy reports that take a few seconds to load, so we show a screen similar to this while we crunch the numbers.

What are your thoughts then about putting only that region of the page behind some kind of loading/awaiting indication? My issue with whole-page takeover loaders is that they lose your control and spatial sense of the app. You can't, for example, page away if you decide the report is taking too long to load, or you went to the wrong section of the site when hunting around for a piece of information.

It all depends on the implementation. What you're describing is pretty common, particularly on blogs comment systems and YouTube.

This can likely be extended to only be utilized on part of a widget. If it's something like an ajax call you can easily add an option to cancel the request e.g. underneath a spinner.

For your report example in particular the service could be developed in such a way that the processing occurs independently of the user session. You can mix this in with an additional request which returns the actual progress of what has been calculated in the report such that whenever a user browses to that page, they can see just how much time there is to go before their report is generated.

Re: PleaseWait.js – Show your users a beautiful loading page while your app loads

#40

Post by pdabbadabba »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #33

No. It's not beautiful. Stop saying that! That word is so overused in software that it is no devoid of all meaning. It's a loading screen. It's perhaps even a nice looking loading screen. Well, it's not ugly. It is missing a lot of functionality though. But it's less rage inducing than the spinning pin wheel so that's good I guess. 2015 would be a better year if we all agreed to stop using the word beautiful with res…

Can a loading screen not be beautiful? Would the world really be a better place if we all said "very pretty" instead of "beautiful"?

Maybe you just don't like it as much as other people do. That just means your tastes differ, not that others are abusing language.

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