7 ms·

This is one of those things that is done by people going "We need our customers to 'feel secure'". I get the rationale, but is there actually any data that sugg

This is one of those things that is done by people going "We need our customers to 'feel secure'". I get the rationale, but is there actually any data that suggests this gives that actual feeling? That users "feel" more secure? Or are more trusting of the site? Or is this just cargo-cult UX? edit: I've seen this on too many financial apps to think it's an isolated incident. It's clearly a "thing" in financial apps (TurboTax.com does it all the time; I see it on my Bank app, lots of mobile apps, etc.) There's gotta be a reason, even if it's wrong.

Mahn 14y ago
If I had to throw a guess, I'd say there was a random non technical manager in the company who saw the page was loading too fast and didn't like it; "it should show there is a heavy process in the background, otherwise our customers will think it is too simple!". Either way I doubt an UX genius is behind this.
- courtewing 14y ago
  It could be the opposite. Wells Fargo has a lot of different apps that need to authenticate and integrate with their identity management/sso system. It is near-trivial to implement this sort of thing, but it isn't necessarily trivial to make it fast. I wouldn't be surprised if the authentication process was taking long enough that a decision was made to add some sort of "loader" like this to make it appear like the extra time was absolutely necessary from a security standpoint. It's a bit of a lazy decision from a UX standpoint, but it isn't entirely uncommon either: when you notice some action is slow, slap an animation in front of it.
- syassami 14y ago
  Ah, The good old Thread.sleeep(10000) to make it feel extra secure
- rgbrenner 14y ago
  If I had to guess, I would say it was the opposite. The page was loading too slowly, so users would click submit a second time. So the popup was added so the users know their first click was received and the page is loading. Seriously, users will resubmit forms if the next page doesn't respond in a 1000ms - 1500ms.
  - dak1 14y ago
    The more correct solution then would be to disable the submit button and provide some sort of (non-misleading) feedback that showed something was happening.
- seivan 14y ago
  There are no "UX geniuses". Or at least they are usually called Developers.
  - Mahn 14y ago
    Actually UX designer is a pretty common job title these days. I'm pretty sure it's a well recognized profession.
  - raverbashing 14y ago
    I usually trust a developer to absolutely ruin the UX of a product any day The level of contempt of some developers is amazing, too bad they don't know UX 101
    - seivan 14y ago
      I know developers who can design and code. The contempt is earned as most "UX monkeys" can just sling photoshop and that's the end of it. Too costly in any startup. Too useless in anything else.
      - ams6110 14y ago
        I'm a developer and I am happy to leave the UX to someone who knows what he/she is doing. That goes far beyond "slinging photoshop" however. When I'm using a website or application I can usually spot where a developer did the UX, because it's quirky, "clever," uses conventions different from other parts of the system, or worst case is completely incoherent.
        seivan 14y ago
        Depends on the platform. I've come to despise mobile UX monkeys if they can't write Cocoa. Period. On iOS it's different, the developer knows the best.
markkanof 14y ago
I worked for a company that implemented a similar technique and it had positive results. The main features of one of their web based software products was a report generator. The report was quite complex and included a lot of calculations based hierarchical relationships of entities in the system. To build this report by hand would probably take hours, but the queries and calculations were all highly optimized and could be run by the server almost instantly. Many users complained that they didn't like paying so much for this feature because it didn't really seem to be doing very much. Instead of trying to educate each individual customer about all the intricacies of the report they just added a dialog box that would display for ~10 seconds and step through a few fake progress messages. People stopped complaining about paying for the report, and I would assume that is because the progress messages made them feel like something complicated was happening.
- dak1 14y ago
  Why do stories like this make me depressed.
  - craftkiller 14y ago
    because stories like those should make you depressed
  - da02 14y ago
    I feel the same way. My guess: it's hard to consider adults are less curious than children, but more confident than children. In biology: maturity = stop of growth
  - swalsh 14y ago
    Because (i'm guessing, since you're on HN) that you're an engineer. You spend all day telling the most logical thing ever created how to act. Its as predictable as a childrens television show. Human psychology is irrational, and thus unpredictable. The engineer psyche doesn't like that.
    - oh_sigh 14y ago
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
seivan 14y ago
Another "UX monkey" who thought this is an amazing feature.
tazzy531 14y ago
Zurb did a tech talk a while back. They found that the drop off rate for one of their long running processes dropped significantly when they added a red bouncy ball as an interstitial for any process that took more than 400 ms.
- B-Con 14y ago
  I wonder about why this is the case. * Is it because we as users have been conditioned, through years of faulty software, to assume crap crashes/hangs when there are unexpected delays? * Or is the majority of computing so fast and instantaneous that we can't bring ourselves to wait on something that doesn't have an immediate end in sight?
sgill 14y ago
This is a totally a marketing technique to make users feel more secure. It's no different than plastering the "hacker safe" (now McAfee Secure) seal on the top of your website. (Which by the way, in tests I've seen split-testing proved the old "hacker safe" seal works better than the new one, or at least it did when the new one was first released). Most of users don't know what SSL is, but they sure as hell feel more secure if you have a big lock or a nice green checkmark in the top corner, especially if they're thinking about putting in their personal info or credit card number. Full disclosure: I'm a founder of an online marketing company. :-)
owenfi 14y ago
Paypal (even with a two-factor fob) has a similar spinning page when logging in. Once I fell for a phishing link, and the first thing to tip me off was the loading indicator was gone/too fast. In that instance it saved my neck as I changed my password asap. Maybe users who realize due to a missing indicator should be smart enough to avoid such a trap in the first place, but I was definitely glad then and can see how this could be an active UX decision with positive implications.
OGinparadise 14y ago
My $0.02: Banks will get hacked, your identity will get stolen but banks and their insurance companies see that as part of doing business. So far it has been quantifiable. But they want you to feel secure so you do everything online, it saves them in real estate and employees--even as fees skyrocket year after year.
mrxd 14y ago
I know there is data showing that adding meaningless security badges and icons to checkout designs increases users' perception of security, so I wouldn't be surprised if the fake progress bar was effective. I'm not sure if there is a better solution that doesn't misrepresent what's actually happening. Users sometimes have heuristics about the way that systems work which might be inaccurate. In this case, the heuristic is something like "doing work correctly takes time; failure happens quickly", where work is keeping your credentials secure. The fundamental problem is that it is difficult for users to differentiate between work done poorly from heavily optimized work done well.
dechols 14y ago
Actually, The Sims 1 did this too. Obviously, it's a game and it's fluff so it's more acceptable than the bullshit that WellsFargo is doing here. I was sad when Sims 2 and Sims 3 didn't include this little gem. A cool bit a humor while you're loading the game? awesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwFsmQu71BE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwFsmQu71BE
- daenney 14y ago
  The Sims 3 does actually :-). Though it's a bit less obvious, but look at the texts swapping in and out under the progress bar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiBLA4aPhcE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiBLA4aPhcE
jpolitz 14y ago
Here's one related study, "examining the extent to which individuals will tolerate delays when told that such delays are for security purposes..." http://cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Papers/Published/emcahk-pl-cont-hold-sec-delay/ http://cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Papers/Published/emcahk... Please Continue to Hold: An Empirical Study of User Tolerance of Security Delays
- DenisM 14y ago
  I was expecting a page that takes forever to load or some such... :)
jcromartie 14y ago
I don't know, but it demolishes the last shred of confidence I had that Wells Fargo had anything resembling a clue about technology, and security of web apps in particular. I've used a few of their services before, and they are all horrible abominations from signup on through.

Mahn 14y ago

If I had to throw a guess, I'd say there was a random non technical manager in the company who saw the page was loading too fast and didn't like it; "it should show there is a heavy process in the background, otherwise our customers will think it is too simple!". Either way I doubt an UX genius is behind this.

courtewing 14y ago
It could be the opposite. Wells Fargo has a lot of different apps that need to authenticate and integrate with their identity management/sso system. It is near-trivial to implement this sort of thing, but it isn't necessarily trivial to make it fast. I wouldn't be surprised if the authentication process was taking long enough that a decision was made to add some sort of "loader" like this to make it appear like the extra time was absolutely necessary from a security standpoint. It's a bit of a lazy decision from a UX standpoint, but it isn't entirely uncommon either: when you notice some action is slow, slap an animation in front of it.
syassami 14y ago
Ah, The good old Thread.sleeep(10000) to make it feel extra secure
rgbrenner 14y ago
If I had to guess, I would say it was the opposite. The page was loading too slowly, so users would click submit a second time. So the popup was added so the users know their first click was received and the page is loading. Seriously, users will resubmit forms if the next page doesn't respond in a 1000ms - 1500ms.
- dak1 14y ago
  The more correct solution then would be to disable the submit button and provide some sort of (non-misleading) feedback that showed something was happening.
seivan 14y ago
There are no "UX geniuses". Or at least they are usually called Developers.
- Mahn 14y ago
  Actually UX designer is a pretty common job title these days. I'm pretty sure it's a well recognized profession.
- raverbashing 14y ago
  I usually trust a developer to absolutely ruin the UX of a product any day The level of contempt of some developers is amazing, too bad they don't know UX 101
  - seivan 14y ago
    I know developers who can design and code. The contempt is earned as most "UX monkeys" can just sling photoshop and that's the end of it. Too costly in any startup. Too useless in anything else.
    - ams6110 14y ago
      I'm a developer and I am happy to leave the UX to someone who knows what he/she is doing. That goes far beyond "slinging photoshop" however. When I'm using a website or application I can usually spot where a developer did the UX, because it's quirky, "clever," uses conventions different from other parts of the system, or worst case is completely incoherent.
      - seivan 14y ago
        Depends on the platform. I've come to despise mobile UX monkeys if they can't write Cocoa. Period. On iOS it's different, the developer knows the best.

markkanof 14y ago

I worked for a company that implemented a similar technique and it had positive results. The main features of one of their web based software products was a report generator. The report was quite complex and included a lot of calculations based hierarchical relationships of entities in the system. To build this report by hand would probably take hours, but the queries and calculations were all highly optimized and could be run by the server almost instantly. Many users complained that they didn't like paying so much for this feature because it didn't really seem to be doing very much. Instead of trying to educate each individual customer about all the intricacies of the report they just added a dialog box that would display for ~10 seconds and step through a few fake progress messages. People stopped complaining about paying for the report, and I would assume that is because the progress messages made them feel like something complicated was happening.

dak1 14y ago
Why do stories like this make me depressed.
- craftkiller 14y ago
  because stories like those should make you depressed
- da02 14y ago
  I feel the same way. My guess: it's hard to consider adults are less curious than children, but more confident than children. In biology: maturity = stop of growth
- swalsh 14y ago
  Because (i'm guessing, since you're on HN) that you're an engineer. You spend all day telling the most logical thing ever created how to act. Its as predictable as a childrens television show. Human psychology is irrational, and thus unpredictable. The engineer psyche doesn't like that.
  - oh_sigh 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

seivan 14y ago

Another "UX monkey" who thought this is an amazing feature.

tazzy531 14y ago

Zurb did a tech talk a while back. They found that the drop off rate for one of their long running processes dropped significantly when they added a red bouncy ball as an interstitial for any process that took more than 400 ms.

B-Con 14y ago
I wonder about why this is the case. * Is it because we as users have been conditioned, through years of faulty software, to assume crap crashes/hangs when there are unexpected delays? * Or is the majority of computing so fast and instantaneous that we can't bring ourselves to wait on something that doesn't have an immediate end in sight?

sgill 14y ago

This is a totally a marketing technique to make users feel more secure. It's no different than plastering the "hacker safe" (now McAfee Secure) seal on the top of your website. (Which by the way, in tests I've seen split-testing proved the old "hacker safe" seal works better than the new one, or at least it did when the new one was first released). Most of users don't know what SSL is, but they sure as hell feel more secure if you have a big lock or a nice green checkmark in the top corner, especially if they're thinking about putting in their personal info or credit card number. Full disclosure: I'm a founder of an online marketing company. :-)

owenfi 14y ago

Paypal (even with a two-factor fob) has a similar spinning page when logging in. Once I fell for a phishing link, and the first thing to tip me off was the loading indicator was gone/too fast. In that instance it saved my neck as I changed my password asap. Maybe users who realize due to a missing indicator should be smart enough to avoid such a trap in the first place, but I was definitely glad then and can see how this could be an active UX decision with positive implications.

OGinparadise 14y ago

My $0.02: Banks will get hacked, your identity will get stolen but banks and their insurance companies see that as part of doing business. So far it has been quantifiable. But they want you to feel secure so you do everything online, it saves them in real estate and employees--even as fees skyrocket year after year.

mrxd 14y ago

I know there is data showing that adding meaningless security badges and icons to checkout designs increases users' perception of security, so I wouldn't be surprised if the fake progress bar was effective. I'm not sure if there is a better solution that doesn't misrepresent what's actually happening. Users sometimes have heuristics about the way that systems work which might be inaccurate. In this case, the heuristic is something like "doing work correctly takes time; failure happens quickly", where work is keeping your credentials secure. The fundamental problem is that it is difficult for users to differentiate between work done poorly from heavily optimized work done well.

dechols 14y ago

Actually, The Sims 1 did this too. Obviously, it's a game and it's fluff so it's more acceptable than the bullshit that WellsFargo is doing here. I was sad when Sims 2 and Sims 3 didn't include this little gem. A cool bit a humor while you're loading the game? awesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwFsmQu71BE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwFsmQu71BE

daenney 14y ago
The Sims 3 does actually :-). Though it's a bit less obvious, but look at the texts swapping in and out under the progress bar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiBLA4aPhcE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiBLA4aPhcE

jpolitz 14y ago

Here's one related study, "examining the extent to which individuals will tolerate delays when told that such delays are for security purposes..." http://cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Papers/Published/emcahk-pl-cont-hold-sec-delay/ http://cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Papers/Published/emcahk... Please Continue to Hold: An Empirical Study of User Tolerance of Security Delays

DenisM 14y ago
I was expecting a page that takes forever to load or some such... :)

jcromartie 14y ago

I don't know, but it demolishes the last shred of confidence I had that Wells Fargo had anything resembling a clue about technology, and security of web apps in particular. I've used a few of their services before, and they are all horrible abominations from signup on through.