> Because of that, people hate to see only a loading spinner with no indication of progress or time. I hate to see the loading spinner at all. It gives you no

> Because of that, people hate to see only a loading spinner with no indication of progress or time. I hate to see the loading spinner at all. It gives you no indication if something is actually happening. (Actually, I feel much the same about progress bars that don't indicate what steps are being taken, as well.) These things will happily sit there spinning forever, possibly doing something, possibly just frozen. Who knows? I hate having to choose between being patient (and possibly a schmuck) or stopping something and trying to solve the problem. These things give no indication of what went wrong, no starting point for where to look, and nothing useful to tell tech support if you call. Caller: I clicked 'Update' and it shows me three pulsing dots. It's not doing anything. Tech: The process can take up to X minutes. Caller: It's been three hours. Tech: Sometimes it can take that long. Caller: ??? Versus Caller: I clicked 'Update' and it's been on 'reticulating splines' for an hour. Tech: That's weird. That part of the process should only take a minute. Do X... does that work? Caller: That worked, thanks! I'm sure lots and lots of UI research has determined that people don't want to see the guts of an application and want it to work by magic. But I find it completely asinine.