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You're reading from  101 UX Principles – 2nd edition - Second Edition

Product typeBook
Published inMay 2022
PublisherPackt
ISBN-139781803234885
Edition2nd Edition
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Author (1)
Will Grant
Will Grant
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Will Grant

Will Grant is a British UI/UX expert and a digital product designer. He is a web technology entrepreneur with over 25 years' experience, leading teams (and products) at the intersection of technology and usability. After his Computer Science degree, Will trained with Jakob Nielsen and Bruce Tognazzini at the Nielsen Norman Group – the world leaders in usable design. Since then, Will has overseen the user experience and interaction design of several large-scale web sites and apps, reaching over a billion users in the process. Will is a "design purist" and obsessed with building beautiful, compelling, and familiar products that customers intuitively know how to use.
Read more about Will Grant

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Use a “Linear” Progress Bar If a Task Will Take a Determinate Amount of Time

Despite your iPhone having the number-crunching power of a late-1990s supercomputer, everyday tasks still seem to take a maddeningly long time in a lot of software. Printing, for example: why does it take so long for the computer to send a document to a printer? It’s as if the printer must work out how to be a printer every time. Regardless, it’s a great idea to let users know how long they’re going to be waiting for.

By the word determinate, I mean that your software “knows” the number of things it must do (or can work it out), and can work through them while updating on progress. Default to this option if you can.

Never show a series of completing progress bars, for example:

  • Copying: 0...10..50..100%
  • Decompressing: 0..20...60..100%
  • Installing: 0...15...45...80...100%
  • Finishing up: 0...20...60...100%
...
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101 UX Principles – 2nd edition - Second Edition
Published in: May 2022Publisher: PacktISBN-13: 9781803234885

Author (1)

author image
Will Grant

Will Grant is a British UI/UX expert and a digital product designer. He is a web technology entrepreneur with over 25 years' experience, leading teams (and products) at the intersection of technology and usability. After his Computer Science degree, Will trained with Jakob Nielsen and Bruce Tognazzini at the Nielsen Norman Group – the world leaders in usable design. Since then, Will has overseen the user experience and interaction design of several large-scale web sites and apps, reaching over a billion users in the process. Will is a "design purist" and obsessed with building beautiful, compelling, and familiar products that customers intuitively know how to use.
Read more about Will Grant