Progress Bars

[thedarkages]

Somewhere, there is a made-up statistic that says that 1/6 of our lives is spent looking at progress bars. I would like a progress bar to proceed steadily and give me an accurate indication of how far along some activity is, preferably with an estimated time to completion. Instead, there are progress bars that advance only to retreat, progress bars which complete only to be replaced with other, empty progress bars, and progress bars that go back and forth. There are even progress bars which do nothing except to tell you that some activity is occurring, and there are yet others which tell you no such thing, because they are just animated images. The only innovation in progress bars that I like is when, when you are uninstalling something, the progress bar goes backwards. There must be human interface guidelines somewhere that mandate meaningful progress bars. If not, surely they are on their way to completion.

Comments

[ilaine-dcmrn.livejournal.com]

Why should computer activity be different than real life? If I had a progress bar showing how far I am towards a goal of, say, a clean kitchen, it would go forwards as I did dishes, backwards as my children spilled things, spin around in circles for an hour when I realized I needed to be doing something more important for the next two hours. With any luck, it will be clean by bedtime, but probably not since I'll be too tired to deal with the dinner pots before morning.

[msfledermaus.livejournal.com]

That's what I'm calling Ben the Neighbor's new closet-bar set up...the Progress Bar!
*shakes shaker full of mysterious alcoholic liquids*

[thedarkages]

1. Nominally, computers are supposed to improve on real life. So instead of flying cross-country, driving in urban traffic, and subjecting oneself to the possibility that the friend one has come to see and chat with is out or otherwise occupied, one has recourse to LiveJournal.
   
2. With days like yours, I think the only marker of progress would be to put a big X over the calendar day and move on to the next.