I've used progress bars a lot in the past both as a designer and as a user. I believe the only true value they bring to a design is the illusion of speed. That things are moving along.
However I disagree that they set expectations for users. Step 3 can still contain the War & Peace of forms - I think its false to say users dont expect they'll get hit with something like that. So, in the end it is an arbitrary indication of how long something is going to take. The windows boot-up progress is an excellent example of what you can achieve but also the shortcomings of an indication of progress. I do agree that cutting things in to chunks helps but... lets say they labeled each of the steps in your original example - would that have helped? arguably not. Progress bars are good design practice but they're not a drop-in fix for bad design - not that you said that! Robert:"The trick is to make the user feel confident. You want to make her feel like an expert who can get through a form with no problem. You don't want her to feel like constantly-surprised" I do not believe progress meters instill any confidence or set any discernible expectations. Telling the user in advance what to expect from the form//wizard is key to setting them up. When the unexpected does happen such as a server DB errors, random docs from the filing cabinet etc - then they are prepared and confident its not their fault. You just dont get that with progress bars alone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://gamma.ixda.org/discuss?post=23078 ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
