4 ms·

I work for Microsoft as a UX prototyper. One of the research studies we did was something similar to this a while back. One of the findings we had was that if t

by jjcm 13y ago

I work for Microsoft as a UX prototyper. One of the research studies we did was something similar to this a while back. One of the findings we had was that if there was any motion at all on the screen, the user felt something was happening. It didn't have to be prominent, just noticeable. If you're doing voice input on windows phone, the vu meter is just a series of very small dancing dots. To let the users know that they could speak, we'd blip one or two of those dots up - hardly anything at all, and indistinguishable from noise, but it let users know stuff was happening. Motion means that something hasn't gone wrong. It means that gears are still spinning. That's also why windows phone has so many 3D transitions between screens. We use longer transitions for heavier load times, because it makes those load times seem faster. The transitions don't have to be prominent though, at least from the studies we did. They just need to be there.

wfunction 13y ago
Is this also why Explorer's progress bar approaches the end asymptically, with no regards to the actual number of files processed? It drives me NUTS, to say the least.
- mafro 13y ago
  I always knew there must be some solid UX reasoning behind those file copy dialogs.
  - wfunction 13y ago
    It's not a file copy dialog, it's a file search dialog. The file copy dialog was never like this. In fact, the Windows 8 file copy dialog is not only good, but fantastic.
- andyhmltn 13y ago
  Apple's 'sending message' bar (at least on iOS7) speeds right to the end and then waits about 50px before it for a few seconds before sending. It's so annoying!
  - crsantos 13y ago
    Also on iOS6
dspillett 13y ago
> I work for Microsoft as a UX prototyper. Please could you talk to the IE team about their progress bars explicitly lying to the user? I understand that giving immediate feedback is important as it can greatly increase perceived responsiveness, but that damn thing (on both desktop and Windows Phone 8) can climb to ~80% before even the first byte is received (it might even manage ~80% before the DNS lookup has returned though I've not tested to prove that). Have you every tried explaining to a non-technical user that their phone didn't "get nearly all the way then stopped" when loading a page? They simply don't believe "your web browsing software is lying to you, it didn't actually receive anything" and look at me as if I'm making things up to try hide that I simply don't understand the hinterwebs. Of course the lie works: people think IE is more efficient than other browsers simply because on slow site and/or with slow connectivity the progress bar seems to initially push up faster than the one in FF/Chrome/other even though the actual page load time is the same. I'm fine with little white lies to make the user feel more cared for (which is what fast "apparent response times" is all about: people personify technology so if you don't give the impression of immediate response they feel like some concious entity is actively ignoring them) but the IE progress bar takes that to an irritating extreme, to the point where it is detrimental to UX (I sometimes can't tell if the page is just loading slowly or nothing is transferring at all and I'm just going to get the "page not available" error in 20 seconds time). It irritates me enough that it will be a factor in deciding what I buy when my current smartphone needs to be replaced (much as I like the Lumia 920; this, other Windows Phone annoyances, and comparative inexpensiveness, will make it difficult to justify not switching to Android next time).
tlarkworthy 13y ago
Please make the bars predict accurately. For a hack its ok to cut corners, but the bars have been bad predictors since windows 95. You guys could have figured it out by now, surely? It has probably caused irritation 10^9 times by now. It should be the first feature of windows 9. I would upgrade!

by jjcm 13y ago

wfunction 13y ago

Is this also why Explorer's progress bar approaches the end asymptically, with no regards to the actual number of files processed? It drives me NUTS, to say the least.

mafro 13y ago
I always knew there must be some solid UX reasoning behind those file copy dialogs.
- wfunction 13y ago
  It's not a file copy dialog, it's a file search dialog. The file copy dialog was never like this. In fact, the Windows 8 file copy dialog is not only good, but fantastic.
andyhmltn 13y ago
Apple's 'sending message' bar (at least on iOS7) speeds right to the end and then waits about 50px before it for a few seconds before sending. It's so annoying!
- crsantos 13y ago
  Also on iOS6

dspillett 13y ago

> I work for Microsoft as a UX prototyper. Please could you talk to the IE team about their progress bars explicitly lying to the user? I understand that giving immediate feedback is important as it can greatly increase perceived responsiveness, but that damn thing (on both desktop and Windows Phone 8) can climb to ~80% before even the first byte is received (it might even manage ~80% before the DNS lookup has returned though I've not tested to prove that). Have you every tried explaining to a non-technical user that their phone didn't "get nearly all the way then stopped" when loading a page? They simply don't believe "your web browsing software is lying to you, it didn't actually receive anything" and look at me as if I'm making things up to try hide that I simply don't understand the hinterwebs. Of course the lie works: people think IE is more efficient than other browsers simply because on slow site and/or with slow connectivity the progress bar seems to initially push up faster than the one in FF/Chrome/other even though the actual page load time is the same. I'm fine with little white lies to make the user feel more cared for (which is what fast "apparent response times" is all about: people personify technology so if you don't give the impression of immediate response they feel like some concious entity is actively ignoring them) but the IE progress bar takes that to an irritating extreme, to the point where it is detrimental to UX (I sometimes can't tell if the page is just loading slowly or nothing is transferring at all and I'm just going to get the "page not available" error in 20 seconds time). It irritates me enough that it will be a factor in deciding what I buy when my current smartphone needs to be replaced (much as I like the Lumia 920; this, other Windows Phone annoyances, and comparative inexpensiveness, will make it difficult to justify not switching to Android next time).

tlarkworthy 13y ago

Please make the bars predict accurately. For a hack its ok to cut corners, but the bars have been bad predictors since windows 95. You guys could have figured it out by now, surely? It has probably caused irritation 10^9 times by now. It should be the first feature of windows 9. I would upgrade!