aboutthednm t1_j2sg24j wrote on January 3, 2023 at 5:15 PM

>Progress bars help make wait times tolerable, regardless of their accuracy.

Holy shit, I finally found literal Satan!

DevilsTrigonometry t1_j2tfdj6 wrote on January 3, 2023 at 8:51 PM

I mean it's not wrong - a progress bar makes users more likely to "tolerate" an unknown wait time (vs. just thinking the site/app is frozen and closing it). And perfect accuracy isn't really necessary as long as it visibly updates often enough.

But yes, it is evil and manipulative to use a fake progress bar that's not even attempting to show real progress. Just use an animated spinner, and make sure the spinner animation is linked to some kind of occasional "are we still doing meaningful work here" check.

narrill t1_j2w2hpl wrote on January 4, 2023 at 9:56 AM

The problem with a spinner is that because tons of software doesn't hook it up to a reliable "are we still doing meaningful work here" check users will assume the thing is frozen if the spinner is there for more than a few seconds. That doesn't happen with a progress bar, because it implies progress is actually happening.