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Cider9986 1 days ago [-]
I don't universally dislike the Throbber, if that's what it's really called.
I have incredibly negative memories of the Netflix one, on cheap TVs with poor WiFi, which had a percentage which meant nothing.
It's used a lot in Android apps and it stresses me out on occasion when I'm in a rush.
Chromium on Android seems to use it well enough when reloading a page.
Often it feels like a jagged interruption in the application and like something is broken or out of place.
cf100clunk 1 days ago [-]
No more relentless hourglass, no more endless toilet flush, no more spinning beach ball. May they all suffer endless guru meditation.
fugaziboutit 20 hours ago [-]
There's a place for spinners, but I agree in the sense that the average user shouldn't be waiting for a spinner in an average session. A green path should be a good experience.
An edge-case user should expect it for expected waits of up to 10 seconds (progress bars for 10sec+ expected waits), because their edge case shouldn't inflict preloading on average users. But ghost loading will make it less annoying in any event, and there should be reasonable timeout error handling.
ChiperSoft 5 hours ago [-]
jfc, please no, I already have to use too many apps that don't give any feedback while they are waiting for a request to finish. I am so sick of systems that don't account for request latency, especially on mobile.
The purpose of the throbber is to tell the user that their tap landed on the right place and the app is actually doing something.
23 hours ago [-]
pessimizer 1 days ago [-]
The throbber was the beginning of developers gaslighting users.
It began as an indicator during long loads that your system hadn't frozen (because whatever process was running had to update it), and became a useless animation that communicated nothing.
classichasclass 24 hours ago [-]
Yes, it tells you nothing. It has no relationship to what's going on at the other end, which may well also be nothing.
ChiperSoft 4 hours ago [-]
It tells you that the app is actually doing something and your tap didn't land outside the button.
ninjalanternshk 23 hours ago [-]
There’s at least one distinction I didn’t see in the article.
If a throbber is advanced by signals of progress or at least action, then it’s not useless and is arguably better than a progress bar that moves with unpredictable and uneven speed.
If a throbber is an animated gif displayed until something makes it go away, then it’s useless.
drcongo 1 days ago [-]
Why ban the symptom?
NetMageSCW 1 days ago [-]
How you respond to bad cases is not a symptom.
perching_aix 1 days ago [-]
Explicitly the opposite of what the page is about if you read beyond the title?
I have incredibly negative memories of the Netflix one, on cheap TVs with poor WiFi, which had a percentage which meant nothing.
It's used a lot in Android apps and it stresses me out on occasion when I'm in a rush.
Chromium on Android seems to use it well enough when reloading a page.
Often it feels like a jagged interruption in the application and like something is broken or out of place.
An edge-case user should expect it for expected waits of up to 10 seconds (progress bars for 10sec+ expected waits), because their edge case shouldn't inflict preloading on average users. But ghost loading will make it less annoying in any event, and there should be reasonable timeout error handling.
The purpose of the throbber is to tell the user that their tap landed on the right place and the app is actually doing something.
It began as an indicator during long loads that your system hadn't frozen (because whatever process was running had to update it), and became a useless animation that communicated nothing.
If a throbber is advanced by signals of progress or at least action, then it’s not useless and is arguably better than a progress bar that moves with unpredictable and uneven speed.
If a throbber is an animated gif displayed until something makes it go away, then it’s useless.