4 ms·

This article is invaluable. We've done the trick of "short animations for delays <1sec", and "indeterminate loader for under 10sec", but one thing that's not m

This article is invaluable. We've done the trick of "short animations for delays <1sec", and "indeterminate loader for under 10sec", but one thing that's not mention is that the "determinate loader for waits between 10sec and 1min" is a huge marketing opportunity. This is where you get to show the value of the product by listing "how much work" is getting done. Similar to how travel sites will tell you, while you're waiting for results, how many airlines they're comparing on your behalf.

bluGill 2y ago
> while you're waiting for results, how many airlines they're comparing on your behalf. Of course as someone in computers I know that the computer can do all of the actually work faster than my screen can refresh. Even accounting for network latency, all the work is done in less than 1 second - everything else is either inefficient code, or intentional delays to make the problem seem harder than it really is. Both of them are things that anyone with computer training should object to.
- sebastiennight 2y ago
  Aha, yes of course I'm only talking about cases where the actual processing time is over 1 second and you can't help but make the user wait (or do something else in app in the meanwhile)... Delaying a 1 sec process to show me 10 sec of ads is one of the many definitions of evil
  - bluGill 2y ago
    Sometimes the ads are subtle. Tax software isn't showing ads directly - they are just trying to give the idea that taxes are hard and so you should be glad to pay a lot of money for it - even though all the calculations are a few ms for any modern computer once it has the data. However if you think taxes are easy the whole industry goes away.
- calderwoodra 2y ago
  I'm not sure you're right here. I used to work with the hipmunk founders and I recall them mentioning that the comparison/flight search is actually pretty computationally expensive. Even Google flights takes special consideration to show loading indicators here, and I'm sure they've put a lot of resources behind making it fast.
threatofrain 2y ago
Meh. This is a prescient vision of websites that deliberately take as long as a YouTube video to load because of an ad.
rootusrootus 2y ago
I find those sorts of fake delays to be infuriating. Depending on my mood, and where else I think I can get equivalent information, there is a pretty decent chance that about halfway through the BS progress sequence I'm going to navigate to a different site. At best it makes me think the site was designed an implemented by incompetent people. Not a great look.
BehindBlueEyes 2y ago
Another thing not mentioned in the article is for delays >10s, a loading bar that fills slower at the beginning and faster towards the end feels faster than one filling linearly or accurately reflecting progression. Using load times to convey something while users wait is fair however I would bet shorter loads times always beats however good a filler, unless your business is to trap users in load times to feed them more ads of course, in which case that's a whole other problem.
- zozbot234 2y ago
  That actually makes a lot of sense, because "filling slower at the beginning" provides a worst-case estimation of total completion time. So users are a lot less likely to be negatively surprised by a random, unexpected delay.
zeekaran 2y ago
I appreciate when video games do this, especially when the text is comical and fake. For example: > Reticulating splines > Generating witty dialogue > Swapping time and space https://gist.github.com/meain/6440b706a97d2dd71574769517e7ed32 https://gist.github.com/meain/6440b706a97d2dd71574769517e7ed...
- sebastiennight 2y ago
  Yes, we do that too. We have an estimate for total completion time (with a min of x seconds). We have 16 steps that are each shown for 6% of the total estimated time. If the job finishes early, then we rush through the remaining steps and announce it's done. If the job takes longer than the total estimate, we show a few more "steps" that are humorous ones. These ones loop.

bluGill 2y ago

> while you're waiting for results, how many airlines they're comparing on your behalf. Of course as someone in computers I know that the computer can do all of the actually work faster than my screen can refresh. Even accounting for network latency, all the work is done in less than 1 second - everything else is either inefficient code, or intentional delays to make the problem seem harder than it really is. Both of them are things that anyone with computer training should object to.

sebastiennight 2y ago
Aha, yes of course I'm only talking about cases where the actual processing time is over 1 second and you can't help but make the user wait (or do something else in app in the meanwhile)... Delaying a 1 sec process to show me 10 sec of ads is one of the many definitions of evil
- bluGill 2y ago
  Sometimes the ads are subtle. Tax software isn't showing ads directly - they are just trying to give the idea that taxes are hard and so you should be glad to pay a lot of money for it - even though all the calculations are a few ms for any modern computer once it has the data. However if you think taxes are easy the whole industry goes away.
calderwoodra 2y ago
I'm not sure you're right here. I used to work with the hipmunk founders and I recall them mentioning that the comparison/flight search is actually pretty computationally expensive. Even Google flights takes special consideration to show loading indicators here, and I'm sure they've put a lot of resources behind making it fast.

threatofrain 2y ago

Meh. This is a prescient vision of websites that deliberately take as long as a YouTube video to load because of an ad.

rootusrootus 2y ago

I find those sorts of fake delays to be infuriating. Depending on my mood, and where else I think I can get equivalent information, there is a pretty decent chance that about halfway through the BS progress sequence I'm going to navigate to a different site. At best it makes me think the site was designed an implemented by incompetent people. Not a great look.

BehindBlueEyes 2y ago

Another thing not mentioned in the article is for delays >10s, a loading bar that fills slower at the beginning and faster towards the end feels faster than one filling linearly or accurately reflecting progression. Using load times to convey something while users wait is fair however I would bet shorter loads times always beats however good a filler, unless your business is to trap users in load times to feed them more ads of course, in which case that's a whole other problem.

zozbot234 2y ago
That actually makes a lot of sense, because "filling slower at the beginning" provides a worst-case estimation of total completion time. So users are a lot less likely to be negatively surprised by a random, unexpected delay.

zeekaran 2y ago

I appreciate when video games do this, especially when the text is comical and fake. For example: > Reticulating splines > Generating witty dialogue > Swapping time and space https://gist.github.com/meain/6440b706a97d2dd71574769517e7ed32 https://gist.github.com/meain/6440b706a97d2dd71574769517e7ed...

sebastiennight 2y ago
Yes, we do that too. We have an estimate for total completion time (with a min of x seconds). We have 16 steps that are each shown for 6% of the total estimated time. If the job finishes early, then we rush through the remaining steps and announce it's done. If the job takes longer than the total estimate, we show a few more "steps" that are humorous ones. These ones loop.