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I worked, for a brief instance in time, at a roadside produce stand. At first I got really hung up on whether or not I could give a customer an accurate, precis

I worked, for a brief instance in time, at a roadside produce stand. At first I got really hung up on whether or not I could give a customer an accurate, precise answer to their question. With time, I realized that 19/20 customers didn't want the correct answer; they simply wanted a confident answer to allay their concerns. To wit: a customer asked for a tomato with qualities A, B, and C (anyone who thinks that such a conceptually complex interest in tomatoes is unnecessary needs google 'heirloom tomatoes'). I recommended a Black Krim tomato which, to the best of my knowledge, I believed would meet all of her needs. She happily purchased six Black Krim tomatoes and went along her merry way. I then asked my manager if there was a better recommendation. He promptly told me that 1) I was diametrically incorrect in my choice for meeting her needs, and 2) it didn't matter, even in the least. Sure enough, later that week the same customer came back and specifically thanked me for my excellent recommendation. I've been reading the comments on various progress bar threads here and elsewhere in the past few days, and I think many of those who dismiss this UI pattern are missing the forest for the trees. It's not about accurately representing the loading of elements in the page. It's not about accurately predicting and displaying when the page will finish loading. It's not about supplanting browser features for the sake of establishing a site-wide or web-wide standard. --- It's about making the user feel like things that are out of their view and control are working properly. --- When I look back on my childhood experiences with computers in the 80s and 90s I distinctly remember my litmus test for "is it frozen" was "can I hear those clicky noises from the hard drive". Those noises told me nothing directly actionable nor did they accurately describe what had been done or what was left to be done. If, hypothetically, I ran an app caught in some bizarre infinite I/O hard drive loop those noises would have been misleading, and I eventually would have given up and hard-rebooted the computer Spinning wheels generally act consistently; a loading bar such as this juts and pauses without any noticeable pattern. It gives us the impression that something is happening behind the scenes that we can't directly observe. If it acted uniformly we might just as easily believe that a dumb loop was living out its repetition. Actual representation of reality is not the point. Perception is the point. I'm sure that popularity could result in a harmful cliche-ification of this UI pattern, but I believe it has its place and its purpose. A browser cannot divine the amount of content that will be loaded on a dynamic site pre-execution. At this point in time, at least, I don't mind encountering these loading bars. I can't really think of an example that irk me in any way. If I notice an in-site loading bar sticking around for a while there's probably something happening (or not happening) that would have pissed me off whether or not that loading bar were there.

mihok 13y ago
Thank you, reading the first couple of comments really threw me off. I completly agree. Although the spinnging wheels works for me IF it say freezes when its not actually processing data or anything other than waiting for a response or something. I still personally prefer the progress bar, the best is combining the two. Showing that the computer (read: browser) hasnt frozen, and that we're progressing in time. Up until now, I was just wishing there was a better way of showing this other than a moving zebra stripe progress bar. This looks like something I'll use.
jamoes 13y ago
> He promptly told me that 1) I was diametrically incorrect in my choice for meeting her needs, and 2) it didn't matter, even in the least. This is why I hate talking to sales people in brick-and-mortar stores. Appearing confident rather than actually being correct is probably good for closing sales and for short-term customer happiness, but it's no good for the longer-term (ie, when you get home and realize you made the wrong choice).
- stinky613 13y ago
  > Appearing confident rather than actually being correct is probably good for closing sales and for short-term customer happiness, but it's no good for the longer-term Well, that depends--and that's where my metaphor breaks down. The customers went home satisfied and remained satisfied (at least, that's what their consistent repeat business and smiling faces would suggest). Tomatoes and website loading times matter to you in the here and now but don't have any lasting effect on your life. That's not the case for making a major purchase.
  - enraged_camel 13y ago
    Yeah, it's definitely context-dependent. Buying the wrong kind of tomato may not matter if you're going to eat them for dinner that night. But if your plan is to grow tomatoes using the seeds from the ones you purchased, it suddenly becomes a bigger problem. You can apply the same reasoning to this UI element. Sometimes - most of the time? - the user doesn't really care about the amount of progress made. They just need to know that something is happening. But at other times, they need to know how much time is actually left on the progress. If that's the case, you need to care about more than just perception.

mihok 13y ago

Thank you, reading the first couple of comments really threw me off. I completly agree. Although the spinnging wheels works for me IF it say freezes when its not actually processing data or anything other than waiting for a response or something. I still personally prefer the progress bar, the best is combining the two. Showing that the computer (read: browser) hasnt frozen, and that we're progressing in time. Up until now, I was just wishing there was a better way of showing this other than a moving zebra stripe progress bar. This looks like something I'll use.

jamoes 13y ago

> He promptly told me that 1) I was diametrically incorrect in my choice for meeting her needs, and 2) it didn't matter, even in the least. This is why I hate talking to sales people in brick-and-mortar stores. Appearing confident rather than actually being correct is probably good for closing sales and for short-term customer happiness, but it's no good for the longer-term (ie, when you get home and realize you made the wrong choice).

stinky613 13y ago
> Appearing confident rather than actually being correct is probably good for closing sales and for short-term customer happiness, but it's no good for the longer-term Well, that depends--and that's where my metaphor breaks down. The customers went home satisfied and remained satisfied (at least, that's what their consistent repeat business and smiling faces would suggest). Tomatoes and website loading times matter to you in the here and now but don't have any lasting effect on your life. That's not the case for making a major purchase.
- enraged_camel 13y ago
  Yeah, it's definitely context-dependent. Buying the wrong kind of tomato may not matter if you're going to eat them for dinner that night. But if your plan is to grow tomatoes using the seeds from the ones you purchased, it suddenly becomes a bigger problem. You can apply the same reasoning to this UI element. Sometimes - most of the time? - the user doesn't really care about the amount of progress made. They just need to know that something is happening. But at other times, they need to know how much time is actually left on the progress. If that's the case, you need to care about more than just perception.