UIST 2007

Rethinking the Progress Bar

Commented On:
Adam Griffin
Ben Carsten
Brad Twitty

Summary:
This paper dealt with how to make progress bars more effective. The researchers had 9 different ways for a progress bar to fill. They all ran the same time length but some would have pauses, some would accelerate, and some would slow down. They have people watch one and then the another to see which they thought ran faster. After all of the users went through tended to favor progress bars that would have have no pauses near the end and especially ones that were moving fast at the end.

Discussion:
I think the experiment was interesting to read about. I think a more interesting experiment is the one they propose in their future work. In this they talk about seeing how long bars would have to run so that the people would think that both progress bars finished at the same time. There research is a quick way for programmers to make the user happier. It would not take much effort of time for them to implement it so that their progress bar moves faster at the end.