3 ms·

I wish loaders would provide some feedback on what is going on. So often, I look at a loader and think "How long will it take? Is it actually still doing somet

by TekMol 3y ago

I wish loaders would provide some feedback on what is going on. So often, I look at a loader and think "How long will it take? Is it actually still doing something? Or should I try to reload the page?". Also, I often wonder why developers put tools like this on an extra domain instead of just putting it on a page or subdomain on their personal domain. Is there a reason for this that I am missing?

mcny 3y ago
1. It gets worse. Often in aspdotnet we have programmers who will only remove loader on success so you could get a 500 internal server error response and the loader never goes away. 2. I think it makes it easier to get to your website without having to use search and it is easy to share like are we web yet dot org
- kevincox 3y ago
  Yeah, lack of error notification in general is a huge problem with many UIs. It is worse than the other common problem of showing "no results" until the actual results load in.
- teh_klev 3y ago
  > Often in aspdotnet we have programmers Pretty sure this is a problem across many other development platforms. Odd that you singled out aspdotnet programmers.
  - mcny 3y ago
    > Odd that you singled out aspdotnet programmers. I was talking about myself but didn't want to admit I am the problem. (:
    - teh_klev 3y ago
      Ah, ok :) Don't be so hard on yourself, even after 20+ years of .NET dev there are still things I can be a bit forgetful about, such as this UI annoyance.
jefozabuss 3y ago
Sometimes I see additional messages pop up next to loaders after certain times passed. Personally if I load from multiple endpoints at the same time I usually add a ##% in the middle of my loading circle calculated based on total and ongoing requests.
kasbah 3y ago
"Reticulating splines"
dspillett 3y ago
> I wish loaders would provide some feedback on what is going on. Often there isn't much feedback that it is easy for the client-side to give, it doesn't get any feedback until the first byte arrives in response and the time between request and first byte is far more significant than the rest of the transfer. For things like file uploads/downloads proper progress is very useful and it is irritating when that isn't present (uploading photos to facebook on a slow connection for one example). Client-side things like number crunching too. One problem you see sometimes where things can be easily monitored and the user informed, is that developers neglect to test in less than ideal conditions. The process works within a second on their devices and connections so they don't think to include a progress indicator, it is only when someone tried the result on something slower (an old slow CPU over a patchy mobile connection) that this becomes apparent. Also more detailed progress information is on the “nice to have” list so gets passed over in favour of bug fixes and other feature updates. > I often wonder why developers put tools like this on an extra domain instead of I think just fashion/appearances. It may also be an SEO thing (short URLs doing better there?).
duxup 3y ago
At least as far as the web goes: I agree generally but things like "How long should it take?" is more about your internet speeds / consistency, or very odd unforeseen issues on the back end, and frankly there's no amount of goofing around with even more code on your computer to determine local internet issues ... will tell me any number that makes sense. The only time calculating "how long" is under ideal circumstances (and at that point nobody cares) or say very predictable large back end workloads. As soon as things get variable, I can't give you a reasonable number. Sorry if that is a bit of a jumble of words and ideas there, I'm actually taking a break from troubleshooting this exact kind of issue. Customer has varying weird internet issues, wants to know "how long" ... bro wat?

by TekMol 3y ago

mcny 3y ago

1. It gets worse. Often in aspdotnet we have programmers who will only remove loader on success so you could get a 500 internal server error response and the loader never goes away. 2. I think it makes it easier to get to your website without having to use search and it is easy to share like are we web yet dot org

kevincox 3y ago
Yeah, lack of error notification in general is a huge problem with many UIs. It is worse than the other common problem of showing "no results" until the actual results load in.
teh_klev 3y ago
> Often in aspdotnet we have programmers Pretty sure this is a problem across many other development platforms. Odd that you singled out aspdotnet programmers.
- mcny 3y ago
  > Odd that you singled out aspdotnet programmers. I was talking about myself but didn't want to admit I am the problem. (:
  - teh_klev 3y ago
    Ah, ok :) Don't be so hard on yourself, even after 20+ years of .NET dev there are still things I can be a bit forgetful about, such as this UI annoyance.

jefozabuss 3y ago

Sometimes I see additional messages pop up next to loaders after certain times passed. Personally if I load from multiple endpoints at the same time I usually add a ##% in the middle of my loading circle calculated based on total and ongoing requests.

kasbah 3y ago

"Reticulating splines"

dspillett 3y ago

> I wish loaders would provide some feedback on what is going on. Often there isn't much feedback that it is easy for the client-side to give, it doesn't get any feedback until the first byte arrives in response and the time between request and first byte is far more significant than the rest of the transfer. For things like file uploads/downloads proper progress is very useful and it is irritating when that isn't present (uploading photos to facebook on a slow connection for one example). Client-side things like number crunching too. One problem you see sometimes where things can be easily monitored and the user informed, is that developers neglect to test in less than ideal conditions. The process works within a second on their devices and connections so they don't think to include a progress indicator, it is only when someone tried the result on something slower (an old slow CPU over a patchy mobile connection) that this becomes apparent. Also more detailed progress information is on the “nice to have” list so gets passed over in favour of bug fixes and other feature updates. > I often wonder why developers put tools like this on an extra domain instead of I think just fashion/appearances. It may also be an SEO thing (short URLs doing better there?).

duxup 3y ago

At least as far as the web goes: I agree generally but things like "How long should it take?" is more about your internet speeds / consistency, or very odd unforeseen issues on the back end, and frankly there's no amount of goofing around with even more code on your computer to determine local internet issues ... will tell me any number that makes sense. The only time calculating "how long" is under ideal circumstances (and at that point nobody cares) or say very predictable large back end workloads. As soon as things get variable, I can't give you a reasonable number. Sorry if that is a bit of a jumble of words and ideas there, I'm actually taking a break from troubleshooting this exact kind of issue. Customer has varying weird internet issues, wants to know "how long" ... bro wat?